EPCOT Landscaping Updates Continue Across World Celebration and World Nature

By WDWMAGIC Staff · Tuesday August 11, 2026 9:51am ET · "EPCOT"
EPCOT Landscaping Updates Continue Across World Celebration and World Nature
EPCOT's landscape refresh adds Sylvester palms to World Celebration and World Nature, with four new trees planted near CommuniCore Plaza, Imagination, and Journey of Water.

EPCOT is continuing its landscaping updates, with new palm trees now planted across World Celebration and World Nature.

Three new Sylvester palms have gone in between CommuniCore Plaza and the Imagination! pavilion. Another new Sylvester palm now stands outside Journey of Water Inspired by Moana in World Nature.

Sylvester palms tolerate cold better than some of the palm varieties previously used around EPCOT. Based on this latest round of changes, Disney appears to be leaning toward more cold-tolerant palm species for the ongoing landscape refresh.

These additions follow the recent palm replacement at the EPCOT entrance plaza, where new Sylvester palms took the place of cold-damaged foxtail palms on each side of Spaceship Earth.

If the pattern continues, expect to see more cold-tolerant palm varieties show up elsewhere in EPCOT as the refresh continues.

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monothingie4 days ago

I still can't find it.

ToTBellHop4 days ago

It’s not a complete failure. The planter is more informative than high school health class.

Disstevefan14 days ago

You can rush perfection. Or in this case, a complete failure. 😉

ToTBellHop4 days ago

When they lifted up the plastic panels, they found this underneath:

tparris4 days ago

Do we know why this process is taking so long? It cannot be that complicated to fill these in, unless there’s more to it that we don’t know about?

HMF5 days ago

I noticed that long before GOTG was even open in 2019.

Superman686 days ago

I hate that blue box! It ruins Spaceship Earth from so many angles! I’ve wondered if they were to wrap it in a way like the Disney Music hall if it would help!

Br0ckford6 days ago

I get that this is from a hotel and probably wasn't really taken into account at the time but oof...does that thing stick out

James Alucobond6 days ago

These aren’t really the same thing. Piston Peak will be fully themed in all directions, it’s just that the ride vehicles may be visible in places that some of us do not think they should be visible. Whatever happens will be intentionally onstage even if misguided, whereas with Cosmic Rewind, we’re just supposed to ignore the unignorable. Probably an unpopular opinion, but if I were in charge, I would spend more than is likely advisable mitigating the exteriors of Cosmic Rewind, TRON, Ratatouille, and Island Tower. They do more to detract from my general experience than any single aging attraction or show.

Dreamer197 days ago

Maybe this is somewhat unrelated, but since we’re talking about Epcot… I visited a friend at the Wyndham Lake Buena Vista and she has a great view of the Walt Disney World panorama. It looks fantastic and was intended to - all of the distinctive features of the individual parks and resorts are visible above the trees. And thennnnn there’s Epcot. This is why I don’t have much faith in modern day imagineering. It started with sight lines and it continues with Cars in the frontier.

Br0ckford8 days ago

They should put a phone in his hand. 🤣

Casper Gutman8 days ago

I can look around WDW and find two dozen things that needed to be updated much more then EPCOT’s center. Heck, I think four of the Future World pavilions - possibly six - needed an overhaul more then the core did. Electric Umbrella needed an update, the smell in the store needed to be addressed, and the Imagineers needed to come up with something to put in the big empty carpeted areas in Communicore. It’s worth noting the big overhaul totally failed to address that last point. Given the landscaping mess, the removal of the fountain, the lighting debacle, the DJ blaring Fergilicious, the intensely bland store, Ol’ Poopin’ Walt, and the empty “festival space,” - yeah, what’s there now is considerably worse then what it replaced.

TrainsOfDisney8 days ago

Exactly. Haha

V_L_Raptor8 days ago

Potty Walt?