Props like artificial plants are an absolute necessity in the theming world
Props like artificial plants are an absolute necessity in the theming world. It brings an exhibit to life, adding a ‘real-feel’ to the atmosphere, all the while taking on visual and aesthetic realism to make visitors feel they are right there in the thick of the scene — wherever it may be. Take for example a ‘jungle’ theme or ride, which would incorporate commonly required items such as jungle vines, garlands, tropical greenery and palm trees. Autograph has your exhibits covered, as they are equipped to provide all of these items and more, in Fire-Retardant foliage if needed.
Create custom scenes to meet any requirement
Like movies, TV shows, theatre productions, amusement parks are made to help stories and dreams come to life. Scenes can be created for whimsical stories by Dr. Seuss to thrilling forests with palm trees and dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. Each scene and setting have different requirements and needs. At amusement parks these scenes are made to mimic the same scenes, day in and day out. These amusement park exhibits must be at to last and hold their integrity for hundreds of thousands, even millions of visitors to view every year. To achieve most of these goals artificial foliage is the way to go!
Autograph Foliages provides many different plant options, even IFR and UV rated Polyblend® Thatch, to fit each of these needs while meeting all safety (FireSafe Foliage®) and durability (Polyblend® UV Outdoor Foliage) requirements. Artificial plants also eliminate overgrowth problems, water shortages, water stains from leaking planters, etc.
Theme Park Examples
Jungle Themes & Thatch
At Disneyworld in Orlando, Hong Kong, Anaheim and Tokyo, Autograph’s Polyblend® Outdoor artificial thatch shingles accent rooftops and tiki-huts in many places at theme parks. Our custom designed thatch pieces were created and designed specifically for Disney projects in our proprietary UV and Fire Retardant formula. Today, these custom thatch roof-tops are still going strong after 10+ years of sunlight exposure. Jungle themed items such as thatch, jungle vines, twigs, ivies, ferns, rocks, palm trees, grasses and others are available from stock as well as custom manufactured to your specific needs. Our custom foliage can be themed in many ways if your project requires special sizes, colors or materials.
Fantasy Theme
There are endless ideas in the fantasy world when it comes to using replica plants or trees. From creating life-like flowers, large oversized foliage, oversized artificial leaves, or experimenting with different colors and textures can make this your theme come to life! Autograph has custom designed giant 20 ft. and 30 ft. trees, created bright and bold flowers, blended colors for natural grass look or designed large artificial tree branches for whimsical trees — only the type of things that you would see in a fairy tale story.
The mix of real and artificial plants adds realism to settings. Throughout Disney and other theme Parks in the world, real plants are frequently intertwined with artificial foliages. Making the difficulty to distinguish between real and fake plants almost impossible to see by the naked eye. Integrating bird chirps, often animatronic, along with different humidity/temperatures, your senses get the best of you, to provide a real tantric experience. Tricks, such as lighting, temperature shifts, sounds, smells and size are created by engineers to mimic realistic and lifelike settings.
For example, at Disney World’s Pandora World of Avatar Land, there is a 135-foot mountaintop where there are ‘floating mountains’ that appear to be floating in thin air. On this mountaintop, the artificial foliage designers set up replica foliage to get smaller towards the top of the mountain, to give an illusion of distance. And, custom Polyblend® UV grasses cover the mountain tops of Mermaid and Be Our Guest attractions at Magic Kingdom Fantasyland.
Forest Themes & Trees
Universal recreated a land from the Mesozoic era. They had artificial life-like dinosaurs (duh), from a Jurassic Park forest scene, using artificial greenery including Custom-made Gingko trees and Hawaiian ferns, Grasses, Ferns, and Pine Branches, all were fire retardant. At Disney’s Magic Kingdom, a boat ride in Splash Mountain will take you through a collection of tales of animated animals with many transitional scenes showing a variety of artificial trees. Tokyo Disney’s Winnie the Pooh Hunny Hut ride takes you on adventure with Pooh showing scenes through the woods and artificial trees, all with Autograph’s Fire Retardant branches. In Japan, Sanrio Puroland’s Hello Kitty indoor theme park, The Wisdom Tree, a main focal attraction in Puro’s enchanted Village is decorated with Autograph’s IFR branches and greenery.
Under the Sea/ Water Theme
Autograph’s garlands and underwater seaweed were installed at Disney’s sub ride 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Finding Nemo Attraction. Artificial garlands, vines, seaweed are custom items for sea life without breaking or deteriorating. Our Polyblend® UV foliage is weather resistant and designed for all exterior and underwater foliage applications.
Types of Materials Used
Today, there are many reasons why theme parks use artificial foliage instead of authentic foliage, however they originally started using artificial due to the man power required to keep the foliage alive. Since the foliage would be kept outdoors, we developed an outdoor UV line called POLYBLEND - The Original UV Artificial Foliage. With over 10 Million Sold, POLYBLEND is the top selling UV protective product on the market
Creating fantasy topiaries or animal topiaries out of boxwood foliage is always a showstopper at theme parks. Custom designer animals such as Lions, Elephants, Bears or animated figures like Mickey Mouse are entertaining and bring life to theme park landscapes. For aesthetic purposes, park landscapers will use boxwood hedges, topiaries, or shrubs all over place and in common areas. Foliage, like boxwood, and are kept neat and manicured continuing with the illusion of fantasy and imagination. Boxwood hedges artistically designed in shapes, or shrubs in perfectly lined in rows are create a visually inviting experience for guests. Functionally, boxwood can also serve as a divider in regulating flow of guest traffic.
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Artificial trees are a perfect addition for themed attractions such as water parks, indoor putt-putt courses, zoos, exhibits, and escape rooms. Autograph Foliages provides tree options in various heights and styles for both indoor and outdoor use, FireSafe foliage®, or even both! Indoor attractions to create a tropical theme will use such props befitting to this type of setting such as artificial Palm trees. Coconut Palms, Areca, Fan, Fishtail, Phoenix and many others are used to make a safari exhibit or tropical paradise to life. Forest-like trees such as Pines, Oaks, Cedar, Willows and others create horror of an escape room or an enchanted forest scene.
For outdoor rides, water parks and other outdoor scenes Polyblend® UV Outdoor foliage is the perfect addition. We even mold giant Polyblend® branches that can be used to custom build larger trees on site. Our outdoor palm trees provide many different options for transforming your space.
Tree building fabricators have a great selection of our UV Polyblend® outdoor fronds. These include 2 sizes of Cycas, 2 of Phoenix, 3 sizes of Coconut, an Areca Palm, and even Bamboo. These Polyblend® fronds can also be molded with a fire-retardant formulation if necessary.
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Theme parks are the place to escape everyday stresses life brings to us — like our jobs and paying bills. We enjoy going to theme parks to let off steam and enjoy the ambiance. You will notice these places do their best to imitate what our imaginations can only dream. And every little detail is important piece of the puzzle. Flowering foliage is part of the little detail. Adding the right amount of colorful geraniums in decorative planter boxes, or hanging azaleas off lamp posts, or hundreds of dozens of roses covering the float that passes you during the parade, all of these little details are part of the bigger picture creating this magical experience and transporting park goers. Live flowers can be one of the most difficult plant materials to keep looking good and fresh year-round. When it comes to maintaining a lasting look Autograph Foliages provides many options both for indoors and outdoors. Create an outdoor landscape logo (with our UV Polyblend® materials) or a park like indoor theme with fire retardant silk flowers. Indoor live flowers are tough to grow and need constant care and even replacement. Our variety of FireSafe IFR Foliage, as well as regular polyester flowers allow you to create the look you need and without the wait for them to bloom! For attractions such as a child’s favorite storybook character (coming to life) you create a lasting look. Seasonal flowers are no longer seasonal with Autograph’s long life beautiful replica flowers. Stop time with artificial flowers for a year-round effect.
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Grasses and grass mats, Autograph’s specialty items are used anywhere and everywhere. Bushes and mats are manufactured in smaller sizes such as 10” or 12” and as large as 6 or 7 feet in height. Custom grass mats can be used to cover unsightly areas such as electrical boxes, or fans, and hide rough landscapes. Grasses can also grace a beautiful rooftop garden or green wall. We can mix and match color, textures, or custom design sizes and thickness of material. Autograph’s grasses can be installed in individual plant clusters or in mats for quicker installations. Available in regular, fire retardant, outdoor UV Polyblend®, or both!
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Our Polyblend® Outdoor Foliage can be used to created decorative living wall replicas, hedges, or privacy fences to hid ride mechanics or behind the scenes operations. With selections ranging from ivy and boxwood mats, to grass picks and ferns, there are many creations waiting for your choice. Different textures and colors are sure to draw in the eyes of ride-goers as they wait in line for the next thrill. Indoor green walls can be another great addition as an “art form” to create different atmosphere for what really might have been an empty space. Green walls can be used anywhere from lobbies and waiting areas to the center of your attraction. Green walls provide a feeling of being outdoors and in touch with nature while being indoors. They enhance your pre-show preparing the attendee for the atmosphere of your attraction.
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Theme parks are full of imagination all the way down to characters being brought to life through costumes, t.v. shows, and garden sculptures.
Landscape Artists create fictitious characters like Mickey Mouse, or animal figures. Disney’s Epcot the International Flower and Garden Festival showcases many of the Disney characters. It is a huge event at Epcot with tons of preparation, and the sculptures are magical! Topiary framing is made of chicken wire, metal or wrought iron frames and sometimes stuffed with some material or sphagnum moss. It can take quite a few years to grow real foliage and maintain its growth. Artificial leaves eliminate the waiting time and maintenance (watering and pruning, etc.). Autograph provides IFR and UV boxwood (buxus), and taxus yew, and juniper foliage are popular greens for topiary designers. Autograph’s Polyblend® UV Juniper leaves were used in the early 80’s for Disney’s Elephant topiaries, and by greensman for movies like “Edward Scissorhands”. For theme parks, many of our Polyblend® UV branches or picks have been used in topiary designs including Disney’s Mickey Mouse.
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Since 1971, Autograph Foliages has been the leading innovator of custom artificial foliage for Theme & Amusement Parks like Walt Disney World, Disneyland, Epcot Center, Universal Studios, Cedar Fairs, Cedar Point, Sea World among many others.
Together we have custom designed and developed new products and product lines with our experienced research and design team including designers, chemical engineers, and fabricators that have helped solve some issues with artificials including improvements in overall realism, upgrades in machinery, materials, longer lasting UV solvents and Fire Retardant chemicals. Our advanced technologies make Autograph the leading manufacturer of custom artificial plants and trees in the United States.
Together we have custom designed and developed new products and product lines with our experienced research and design team including designers, chemical engineers, and fabricators that have helped solve some issues with artificials including improvements in overall realism, upgrades in machinery, materials, longer lasting UV solvents and Fire Retardant chemicals. Our advanced technologies make Autograph the leading manufacturer of custom artificial plants and trees in the United States.