Miracle Gardens

Let me tell you about the magic that is called Miracle Gardens!!  But first Mango wants to say Hi!!

Flowers!!  Flowers as far as the eye can see!!

The Dubai Miracle Gardens is aptly named considering that (like pretty much everything in this Middle Eastern destination) it was built in a desert.  Now that's what I call making the desert blooming like a rose.

 This 775,000 square feet (18 acres) garden showcases identifiable structures completely covered with flowers.

Here you can immerse yourself among more than 100 million blooming flowers throughout the different exhibits.

There are plenty of attractions to see, including some quirky layouts.

 

Launched on Valentines' Day 2013, it now attracts up to 1.5 million visitors a year.

I want these ice cream cone chairs at my house!!

In April 2015, the garden was awarded the Moselle Award for New Garden Experiences of the year by the Garden Tourism Award.

It is open from October to April and remains closed from June to September due to high temperatures with an average of 104, which, go figure, is not conductive for flower viewing.

The flowers are maintained by reuse of waste water through a drip irrigation method with an average amount of 200,000 gallons of water per day.

There are 120 different varieties of flowers on site, including petunias, geraniums, and marigolds.

This years theme is "Sunflower Lovers"

To get the right variety of sunflowers suitable for the Dubai weather, they had to experiment for one year with 15 varieties of sunflowers.

A colorful collection of parrots, kangaroos, giant ants, butterflies, and swans can be spotted around the gardens.

 

There is even a life-size Aribus A380

It's covered in over 500,000 fresh flowers and living plants.

I fell like I'm being watched........

 

A tunnel of love

The petunias, marigolds, snapdragons, geraniums, and more were grown over a period of four months in the garden's nurseries.

 

Among the many exhibits, you'll find the Guinness World Record for the World's Largest Flower Arrangement.

It would be hard to miss this floral rendition of the great Airbus A380 super jumbo aircraft.  It opened in November 2016

The shell of the double-deck jet covered in more than 500,000 flowers and living plants that eventually, when in full bloom, will mean a total count of five million flowers, weighing more than 100 tons (200,000 pounds)

It is over 240 feet long, the fuselage stands 36 feet from the ground, and the tail is 80 feet from the ground.  It is set on a flower bed of almost 2 acres which roughly takes up 10% of the garden.

For the Emirate logo alone, more than 9,000 flowers were used. and the 262 foot wingspan is blanketed in some 100,000 blossoms.

Incredibly, the structure even includes moving engine fans.

It's like Alice in Wonderland down there.

 

The flowers are meticulously cared for by a team of expert horticulturists and greens keepers (nearly 200 gardeners), so the flower displays look their absolute best during every visit.

It is the world's largest natural flower garden, featuring over 250 million plants.

One must pose like the statues one comes across.

A raised platform in the middle of the gardens allows you to have a birds eye view of the entire park.

 

The floral structures are changed every season to ensure repeat visitors get a different experience each time they visit.

The Dubai Miracle Garden is famous for taking everyday objects - cars, trains, clocks, houses, and completely covering them in a mind-boggling array of flora.

I shall make this mine.

Nurturing more than 120 flower varieties is nothing short of a miracle, given the fact that blooms should be planted three to four months before the start of every season, which means they need to start planting in July which is the peak of summer.

From a tunnel of love to a tunnel of butterflies, what could get better than that?

A freaking huge teddy bear!!

oh wait!, there's bees hanging in those trees.

It was a very lovely day for a stroll through the gardens.

The theme of Dubai Miracle Gardens should be, "Juxtaposition of completely unrelated elements, often involving a bird of some sort."

A 40 foot teddy bear!

 

Lets see....kangaroos - check.  Ostriches - check. Butterflies - check.  Swans - check.  What am I missing?  

Oh yes, Birds - check.  Ants - check.

Has the record in the Guinness Book of World Records for having the longest wall of flowers that has a .62 mile (3280 feet) long circumference .

Floral Mickey Mouse.  The 60 foot structure is now the Guinness World Record holder for the World's Tallest Supported Topiary Sculpture.

The statue, a collaboration with Disney to celebrate the upcoming 90th anniversary of Mickey Mouse, is made up of almost 100,000 flowers and weighs close to 35 tons (70,000 pounds).  It is supported by a 7 ton steel structure that also has a foundation of a staggering 50 tons (100,000 pounds) of reinforced concrete.  It is the second Guinness World Record awarded to Dubai Miracle Garden.  The park has suggested that there will be more Walt Disney themed projects in the future.

Nothing to see here.

Me and the niece riding a balloon animal

They had Burj Khalifa drink cups.  I obviously had to have one!!  The drink was made from pure sugar cane....not very tasty.  But I didn't get it for the drink.

Peacock clock....

Rockin' around the peacock clock.

Is there something behind me?  Should I be worried?  He looks like he's eyeballing me like I'm some kind of tasty treat.

Plenty of seating areas.  Apparently they had a selection of floating beds and tropical-inspired hammocks but I didn't see those.

I loved the Miracle Gardens.  They were beautiful and the sculptures were epic and amazing.

That evening, for fun, we played live action Battleship with the Nephews.  My Wolf Scouts would have so much fun playing this.  I also need to figure out how to set this up in my house!!  I'll post a video of the battle

Sigh, sadly the end of my journey is drawing to an end.  Tomorrow's post will be all about my last day in Dubai.