As part of Earth Month, Disneyland Paris shines a light on Alain Venant and hidden treasures of Alice’s Labyrinth. For nearly 15 years Alain has been one of the gardeners working at Disneyland Paris caring for the 80 gardens in grounds of the Parks, Hotels, Disney Village, golf course and backstage. This means one minute he can be cutting bamboo in Adventureland and the next he’s cutting the grass on the Castle’s slopes.
One of the biggest areas Alain focusses on is the Alice’s Curious Labyrinth attraction. The labyrinth is 2.5km and is the home to over 6,000 plants. Due to the maze style layout all 3 sides of the shrubs need to be pruned, meaning the gardeners who look after the attraction have over 7km of plant life to prune and look after. To ensure minimal disruption to guests and to keep low noise levels the gardeners only use hand tools, making this job very challenging and time consuming.
In addition to the maze, the iconic Cheshire Cat’s head is made with over 3,000 Magnolias flowers, which are changed 2-3 time a year, whilst the claws are moulded from evergreen shrubs. For ecological reasons, Disneyland Paris has placed a drip irrigation system around the attraction allowing them to preserve water resources.
“What I like about this attraction is that the vegetation is the centrepiece of the story and I can’t wait to see Guests get lost in this deadly again”
Alain Venant
