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Topiaries spruce up Busch Gardens Food and Wine Festival

 
Naga’ Zira’ the Green Boa Constrictor is a sidewalk serpent made from more than 25,000 of red St. Joseph’s coats, green ficus’ and yellow alternantheras located near the park’s Conservation Cabin, where several snake species reside.
Credit Busch Gardens
Naga’ Zira’ the Green Boa Constrictor is a sidewalk serpent made from more than 25,000 of red St. Joseph’s coats, green ficus’ and yellow alternantheras located near the park’s Conservation Cabin, where several snake species reside. Credit Busch Gardens
Published April 17, 2015

The best thing about Busch Gardens Food and Wine Festival might be the collection of new topiaries that dot the park, from a huge octopus rising from a fountain to a ginormous spring maiden to a funny collection of "topirazzi" photographers — so you have bushes snapping pictures from the bushes.

When the festival was first unveiled for the media March 6, Busch Gardens president Jim Dean was excited to see the Spirit of Spring, a topiary of a woman that stands serene and immense in Bird Gardens, with her forearms wrapped around a pond.

"At first we thought these should be special just for the festival but I really don't want them to go away," Dean said as the topiary underwent its final touches.

It took 165,000 plants of six different species to create the woman inspired by a 100-year-old bronze art nouveau sculpture. Spirit of Spring weighs more than 25 tons and has its own internal irrigation system and reflecting pool.

"But now I'm thinking," Dean said, "why don't we keep them and just keep adding more?"