Epcot: Flower & Garden Festival gets earlier start

Disney World gardener Jesse Pacheco crafts a Mickey Mouse topiary.

Next year’s Epcot Flower & Garden Festival will see its earliest start ever. The festival will kick off March 3, 2010 –  two weeks earlier than the 2009 edition.

There’s colorful reasoning for the move.

“The advantage of starting earlier is that we’ll be able to feature more brilliant color than ever, with richly hued petunias, violas, snapdragons and other hardy flowers,” festival horticulture manager Eric Darden says. Guests will be more able to get inspired by and plan their spring and summer planting, he says.

The festival will still run 75 days — through May 16, 2010.

Disney also announced a few new features of the event. (More after the jump)

+ The front entrance topiary will include a live waterfall and pond, Goofy fly-fishing, Daisy Duck roasting marshmallows and Pluto in his pup tent (wink wink).

+ One new topiary will be an American Gothic Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse based, of course, on the Grant Wood painting.

+ The size of the butterfly house will double to 3,500 square feet.

+ The Pixie Hollow Fairy Garden will expand in size and in characters, adding “fast-flying, sharp-tongued” Vidia and Terence, the pixie-dust dispenser.

The Great American Gardeners series and the Flower Power concerts will return. More information at www.disneyworld.com/flower.