Emirates A380 blossoms at Dubai Miracle Garden

A new botanical wonder has taken root at the heart of the world’s largest natural flower garden in Dubai.

Emirates Airline has teamed up with Dubai Miracle Garden to construct the world’s largest floral installation through a life-size version of the Emirates A380, covered in more than 500,000 fresh flowers and living plants.

When in full bloom, the aircraft structure will have an unprecedented total stem count of 5 million flowers and will weigh over 100 tonnes (take-off weight of an actual A380 is 575 tonnes).

Boutros Boutros, Divisional Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications, Marketing and Brand said, "The Emirates A380 is a statement making aircraft that is tremendously popular with passengers around the world, and we hope that through our collaborative efforts with Dubai Miracle Garden we will inform, inspire and delight visitors through the sheer scale and beauty of the floral A380 installation.

Abdel Naser Rahhal, Co-Founder and Creator of Dubai Miracle Garden said, "At Dubai Miracle Garden, we showcase everyday objects and give them life through flowers and plants, creating a connection with our visitors. We hope that when visitors get up close to the Emirates A380 they will get a sense of the scale in which it was built. As our motto says: We are the green masters and bloom makers, wherever we go we make it green, whatever we touch we make it bloom."

The flowers and plants used for the installation were grown and harvested over a four months period at Dubai Miracle Garden nurseries. They included the Petunia, Coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides), Marigold (Tagetes), Snapdragon (Antirrhinum), Viola, Geranium (Pelargonium) and Gaillardia (Gaillardia aristata). A medley of over 9,000 flowers and plants made up the Emirates iconic logo, and 100,000 blossoms formed the enormous wings, which reach over 80.27 metres wide.

Over 200 people worked 10 hours a day for 180 days to build, layer and mount the textural foliage on the 30 tonne steel structure that makes up the Emirates A380. Which is over 72.93 metres long. The fuselage stands 10.82 metres from the ground and the tail at 24.21 metres from the ground. The aircraft structure even includes moving engine fans and other key design features.

The installation is the largest structure to ever be built at the garden and is set on a flowerbed of 7,460 square metres, roughly 10 percent of Dubai Miracle Garden. It will be on display for the public from 27th November.