Tour Dollywood Theme Park's Amazing Floral Sculptures

Dollywood’s Flower & Food Festival is filled with living floral displays that bloom in a kaleidoscope of colors. In partnership with the internationally acclaimed Mosaïcultures Internationales de Montréal sculpting team, the theme park is adorned with plant sculptures that are in keeping with the Great Smoky Mountain’s natural wildlife, as well as a few sculptures that have special meaning to the park’s namesake, Dolly Parton.

This sculpture of Dolly's mother sewing her famous coat of many colors was designed especially for Dollywood. “Coat of Many Colors” is a song written and released by Dolly in 1971. It is based on a true story of how Dolly’s mother made her a patchwork coat of rags. While Mama Parton sewed the coat, she told Dolly the biblical story of "Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors". Dolly was so proud of the coat, but when she got to school, the other children made fun of her for being poor and wearing a coat made of rags. However, Dolly soon realized that she was rich in so many other ways. The story of Dolly’s coat was also made into a play, a children’s book and a movie.

The monarch butterflies are made of acrylic and the 14-foot sculpture is comprised of the following plants:

• - sedum: ‘Cherry Tart’, ‘Ogon’ and ‘Lemon Ball’
• - alternanthera: tricolor ‘Rosea’, ‘True Yellow’, cromatella ‘Rubra’, ‘Little Ruby’, ‘Green Match’, ‘Red Threads’ (red small leaf) and “Red Match’
• - dragon's tongue Hemigraphis repanda
• - creeping Jenny Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’
• - Petchoa ‘SuperCal Blue’ (a cross between a calibrachoa and petunia)
• - calibrachoa: ‘Cabaret Bright Red’, Calitastic Pumpkin Spice’ and ‘Mini Famous Red’
• - ajuga ‘Chocolate Chip’
• - lobelia ‘Hot Waterblue’
• - artemisia ‘Silver Brocade’
• - creeping wire vine Muehlenbeckia

Butterflies are the omnipresent symbol of Dollywood; even the W in the Dollywood logo is the shape of a butterfly. So, it’s not surprising that a pair of butterfly plant sculptures grace the entrance of Dollywood’s Showstreet arcade.

The butterfly sculptures sit across the plaza from the Mama Parton sculpture. The butterflies are comprised of Hemigraphis repanda and three different kinds of alternanthera: ficoidea (green small leaf), ‘Red Threads’ (red small leaf) and ‘True Yellow’. The ground plants are Petchoa ‘SuperCal Premium French Vanilla’ and ‘SuperCal Premium Caramel Yellow’.