Commercial Landscape Appreciation - Disney Topiary

While they are sometimes taken for granted today, Disney topiaries helped popularize the use of the art in the United States. Now it may seem like that topiaries are out of budget items for most businesses you can still dream of using them at your location here in the Valley of the Sun.

This year marks a milestone of Disney topiaries, which are distinctly different than the traditional ones. By 1963, there were roughly two dozen topiaries inside Disneyland. They included a waltzing hippo, a poodle, a pig, bears, elephants, seals, and giraffes.

These were relocated in 1966 to the area in front of the "it's a small world" attraction, where they became one of Disneyland's most popular photo locations.

It is said that Walt Disney had been to Europe and had seen some fine topiary and he was impressed. Conventional topiary goes back some 3,000 years. Traditional European topiary (which inspired the Disney version) has been around since the time of Julius Caesar. It fell out of favor for a period of time but was revived in the mid-1800s. By the turn of the 20th century, Americans had incorporated the art of topiary in their gardens. But the plant material customarily employed to produce topiary figures was very, very slow growing. It takes years and years to respond to the desired effect. 

Apparently Walt was a bit too impatient for that. 'Let's get some topiaries in the park in a year or two,' he said. He didn't see any point in waiting 20 years. The animators sat down and did illustrations that they wanted. They blew them up to full size and then took a lot of reinforcing rods and warped it around into the shapes that were needed, a kind of skeleton out of steel.

The plants were then encouraged to grow around that skeleton. You bend them a little bit in January and a little bit more in February and a little bit more in March until you get the bones of the plant around the basic shape and finally you get to what you want. The difference in doing this short order topiary is that this stuff grows fast. A laughing elephant, along with a two-humped camel, a giraffe and an elephant doing a handstand, were created along with roughly a dozen others to take up residence in the front of "it's a small world" when it opened in May 1966.

It was a great advantage for the opening, but it became a great disadvantage in the long haul. European topiary is hundreds of years old. What Disney had created wasn't going to last a hundred years. The topiary Disney created actually only lives maybe 10. So they have to have stand-ins behind the scenes ready to come aboard when needed... all part of the Disney magic.

Keep in mind that beauty is only skin deep, Disney is understandably concerned with the welfare of their green charges. Too much water, too little water, too much fertilizer, too little pest control, could materially damage or destroy 24 months of hard work in making them. 

Many of the topiaries and how they are grown have changed over the years, but now you know the history and painstakingly hard work that goes into making those beautiful decorations. 

No matter what needs to be maintained keep in mind that Greens Keeper Landscape Maintenance can Help!  Please contact us at; Sales: 623-848-8277 We serve businesses like yours throughout the entire Phoenix Metro Area.

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