The Miracle Garden is very popular and much appreciated by visitors. Typical comments are: amazing, beautiful, lovely, miraculous, awesome, extravagant, refreshing, pleasant, memorable, unforgettable and unbelievable. It was designed and created by
Akar Landscaping Services, led by Abdel Naser Rahhal. Most of its 60 million+ plants are petunias. They are watered by approx 1000 or so cubic metres of irrigation water applied every night. It's grey water - from washing etc, not from WCs.
With regard to Cultural and Natural Heritage, the dominant plant, by a very large margin, is the petunia, which is South American. The garden may have 50 million of them.
It’s quite possible that the use of massed bedding plants originated in the Middle East, perhaps in Sasanian Persia, and that it reached Europe via the Islamic palace gardens of Southern Spain. But the representational use of ‘carpet bedding’ to form iconic images, developed in Europe. Today, it flourishes in English seaside towns, in Canada, in India and, of course, in China. It’s more an Asian taste than a European taste - and 70% of Dubai’s residents are Asian - mostly from the Indian subcontinent,
The Dubai Miracle Garden has had Guinness World Records: for the world’s largest flower arrangement (on an Airbus A380 which is 73 metres by 78 metres) and for the world’s tallest topiary structure (a Disney-approved Mickey Mouse sculpture which is 18 metres high).
