150 million flowers arranged into an Emirates A380, a Disney castle and a great deal else, in the middle of a desert, for six months a year.
Opened on Valentine’s Day 2013 in the middle of the desert, the Miracle Garden claims around 150 million flowers across 72,000 square metres and holds Guinness records for the largest vertical garden and the largest flower arrangement.
The centrepiece is a full-size Emirates Airbus A380 covered in around half a million living plants — the largest floral installation in the world, and genuinely startling at scale.
Elsewhere: a Disney castle with Mickey Mouse, hearts, peacocks, umbrellas, clocks, a floral village, Smurf Village, and a lake with a windmill. The aesthetic is unrestrained and entirely uninterested in your opinion of it.
The season
It is open roughly from November to May and closes for the summer, because nothing living survives a Dubai July outdoors. Exact dates move each year and are announced in advance.
This is the most important practical fact about the place. Visitors arrive in July every year and find it shut.
How it works in a desert
Everything is fed by drip irrigation using treated municipal wastewater — around 750,000 litres a day — delivered under the beds so almost nothing is lost to evaporation. The garden is regularly cited by the municipality as a demonstration of reuse rather than an extravagance, and both readings have something to them.
Displays are replanted between seasons and change year to year.
The Butterfly Garden
Next door, ticketed separately or combined: nine climate-controlled domes with several thousand butterflies of dozens of species. It is open all year, being indoors, and is good with children.
Practicalities
Tickets are moderate and cheaper online. Under-threes free.
Go early or late. It opens in the morning and closes late; midday even in February is hot and the paths are largely unshaded. Evening visits with the displays lit are popular.
Weekends are extremely busy. Weekday mornings are calm.
Getting there is the awkward part: it is in Dubailand, well inland, with no metro nearby. Bus 105 from Mall of the Emirates runs to it seasonally; otherwise a taxi, about twenty-five minutes from Downtown.
