• August 20, 2009

Toyota Motor Sales unveiled what it calls a first-of-its-kind "harmony floralscape," a roadside display made up of more than 20,000 live flowers along the Pasadena Freeway (SR-110) in downtown Los Angeles.

The floralscape is one of nine oversized floral designs that will appear alongside California freeways in support of the launch of the 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle. Seven of the Floralscapes will be in the Los Angeles area and two in the San Francisco area. Developed by Greenroad Media, Inc., using the company's patent-pending "Living Pixel" technology, design images are replicated using flowers of differing varieties and colors.

Several different designs have been developed, and the displays will be changed and updated several times during the next four months. Since federal regulations require that the floralscapes be non-commercial in nature, abstract images of the new Prius will appear in different settings. All of the images have been approved by California's department of transportation, Caltrans.--Tanya Irwin