Your home garden requires fertilizer, weeding, watering and a watchful eye.
Now multiple that by, oh, at least 10,000 and you have the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival, now underway for the 23rd time at Walt Disney World.
This year's event runs 90 days, the longest in its history. But its planners don't plant and not look back.
"Most people think you put what's on the blueprint and you call it a day. That's not the case," said Eric Darden, horticulture manager for the festival.
Changes that occur during the Epcot event follow a couple of branches: making improvements and making replacements.
"We're walking this festival every single day and looking at what we put in," Darden said. "It's very common to say 'OK, I know this what we planned, and this is good … but how can we make it better?'"
For example, after planting the flowers for the sunburst design behind Spaceship Earth, the horticulture team decided to add taller plants for more dimension and "just to zing it up a bit," Darden said. They also supplemented the area featuring topiaries of Minnie Mouse and Pluto with materials and props from past festivals.
"We take advantage of all of our resources, that's for sure," Darden said.
Getting the right look for guests is one of the goals.
"People come to see that mass of flowers," Darden said. Some flowers are put in much closer together than one would place in a home garden, reaching for maximum color effect, he said.
"We always say that during Flower & Garden Festival, we're not just planting bedding plants, we're painting a picture. So we'll keep planting flowers until we get the look that we want," Darden said.
That painting will begin to fade, naturally, as the weather warms up during the course of the fest. Disney replants as it's called for, and sometimes that means a change in color scheme. For instance, the expansive design on the banks of the waterway between the park's Future World and World Showcase probably will have less blue in it by mid-April after more heat-resistant (and redder) blooms are put into place.
PICTURE GALLERY: Get a first look at featured topiaries, gardens and all-new gourmet tastings at the 23rd Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival, now through May 30, 2016.
When the event grew to 75 days in 2008, a second widespread planting was required. Darden doesn't expect that to increase to three plantings this year.
"We're pretty sure the second planting is going to make it to summer. But it's uncharted territory to go 90 days," he said. "We know we can do it — but there's never been a 90-day festival."
For more than 50 years, Disney has been in the topiary business. Epcot's flower fest is an ideal place to carry on that tradition, with greenery figures spread throughout the theme park.
New topiaries this year include Huey, Dewey and Louie, the three rambunctious nephews of Donald Duck. They expand the number of "same-scale" characters to 11. They are sized to interact — at proper proportions — with a topiary set that includes Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Donald, Daisy, Chip and Dale.
"That's one thing to look forward to in future years," Darden said. "We're always trying to get more of those classic characters that we can use together. It makes it easy to be creative."
This year, the smaller-scale Chip and Dale are used in the park-ranger scene in Future World. They are the rascally ones in the display, having swiped Ranger Mickey's (topiary) sandwich.
Among the returning topiaries across World Showcase: "Lady and the Tramp" figures in Italy, the dragon in China, Belle and Beast in France, Snow White and the seven dwarfs in Germany and royal sisters Elsa and Anna in Norway, where "Frozen"-based attractions are under construction.
For year, the festival flirted with food offerings — from brunches to edible gardens to programs about food from around the world. Three years ago, Disney introduced kiosks or "outdoor kitchens" to the Flower & Garden lineup. There can be confusion between these offerings and the ones served during the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival each fall.
"The main differentiation is done by the culinary team," Darden said. "Most of the dishes are going to be very hot, lots of herbs, vegetables, grain crops — not as much focus on just the meat. It's usually a lot more vegetable matter."
Watermelon salad with pickled onions, baby arugula and feta cheese; featured during the media preview of the 23rd Epcot¨ International Flower & Garden Festival at Walt Disney World Friday, Feb. 26, 2016.
Although it's just the fourth year for the festival to have any sort of emphasis on food, visitors have laid claim to fest faves, including the watermelon salad from the Florida Fresh kitchen and the smoked salmon served at Cider House, said Gregg Hannon, executive chef at Epcot.
And while the Food & Wine fare is usually from far-flung locales, at least one stop at Flower & Garden feels home-grown. Hannon points to the Florida Larder Board from the Florida Fresh outdoor kitchen.
"Not only is it from Florida, but it's all ingredients that are locally sourced right here in Orlando," he said. "We have an Orlando-made cheese, we have a pate, we have bread made in Winter Garden and some pickled vegetables."
When: Daily through May 30. Park hours are 9 a.m.-9 p.m.
Cost: From April 3 to May 26, a one-day ticket to Epcot costs $102; on the other days of the festival, it's $114.