A menagerie of magical creatures casts an enchanting spell over the Atlanta Botanical Garden during May through October with Imaginary Worlds Plants Larger Than Life – 19 monumental living sculptures of fantasy and delight.
The exhibition of mosaiculture – the horticultural art of creating giant topiary-like sculptures using thousands of bedding plants to carpet steel forms – is the creative genius of International Mosaiculture of Montreal. The nonprofit group has staged wildly successful exhibitions of its work around the world, and the Atlanta showing will be the first major exhibition of its kind in the United States.
“The scale of this work, the imagination, and the excitement knowing we will be the first-ever U.S. botanical garden to host one of their exhibitions stands to place this event on par with our blockbuster showing in 2004 of Dale Chihuly’s glass sculptures,” said Mary Pat Matheson, the Garden’s president and CEO.
The sculptures – ranging up to 25 feet tall and 20 feet wide – include a gazing unicorn, a friendly ogre, a pair of gigantic cobras, a group of enchanting rabbits, and a couple of flighty butterflies. The largest piece, a 25-foot-tall representation of a goddess emerging from the earth, will greet visitors in the Cascades Garden.
Each sculpture is a living, sophisticated evolution of the traditional “stuffed topiary” technique. Thousands of meticulously groomed annuals are planted into soil-and-sphagnum moss filled netting covering the steel forms – hidden works of artisanship themselves – to carpet the skeletons in colorful patterns. Complex irrigation systems beneath the surface of the sculptures allow the plants to grow – and the creatures to flourish – in Atlanta’s summer heat.
Keep the Valentine's Day love momentum going and let the Westin Buckhead Atlanta show you a good time with a “Puppy Love” party on Saturday, February 16 from 2 to 4 p.m. to benefit the 1873 Society Club, the Atlanta Humane Society’s junior board. Enjoy specialty cocktails and light bites, including cupcakes from Smallcakes, while mixing and mingling at the pet-friendly hotel in the heart of Buckhead. Pet-friendly libations (water) and nibbles (dog treats) will be provided for the pups. Festivities will include Pet Stylist Anais Hayden – who recently appeared on Anderson Cooper’s daytime show – styling the pups and she will have her dog painted in a Valentine theme design using safe vegan dye, grooming from Atlanta Dog Spa and a doggy kissing booth with a foster dog from the Atlanta Humane Society. Proceeds from the cash bar and $5 raffle will benefit the 1873 Society Club. The event is free and open to the public.
