Charming festive display piece or stunning parts pack? LEGO® Icons Botanical Collection 10370 Poinsettia is both! One third of its 608 parts are rare or exclusive, all of which are integral to the plant's striking bracts, plentiful foliage and sturdy woven-basket flowerpot.
Even at a glance, it's clear 10340 Wreath aims to combat the winter blues with a whole forest of green and some zesty orange slices. Let's see what else the latest entry in the LEGO® Icons Botanical Collection has to offer.
LEGO® Icons sets tend to be expensive; often priced in the triple digit spending realm. LEGO Icons Botanical Collection sets have been more affordable, with the most expensive to date, 10289 Bird of Paradise (review by Victor), breaking the 100 € ceiling in some countries. Outside of the Botanical Collection branding, LEGO has released smaller flower-themed sets within the price range of one or two dozen euros.
Two new sets available in August 2024, 10368 Chrysanthemum and 10369 Plum Blossom, combine these two ideas – a low price point of about 30 € each, and lifestyle picture-worthy aesthetics and quality. How do they fare, and what are they made of?
The Botanical Collection is a subtheme of LEGO® Icons that features relatively affordable sets. In reality, similar life-size botanical subjects have found their way to other LEGO themes, too, including LEGO® Creator and, surprisingly, LEGO® Disney Princess sets. For me, these sets appeal as beautiful models. However, I'm foremost a MOC maker, and they are very good material for own creations – they include usually many of the same pieces, often in bright colours and sleek, organic shapes.
Last week, New Elementary's Flowerfest kicked off with an impressive line-up of character builds by Eero Okkonen. A Sontaran built from rose petals is a tough act to follow, but I'm ready to do my best! I'll be analyzing two recent arrivals to the LEGO® Botanical Collection - 40646 Daffodils and 10313 Wildflower Bouquet - and sharing MOCs inspired by their parts.
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After we took a look at the new and rare parts in the 2023 LEGO® Icons Botanical Collection sets a week ago, I am now kicking off our Flowerfest! Over the next few weeks, my New Elementary colleagues and I will reveal what we created with these beautiful elements.
I received two LEGO® Icons Botanical Collection sets, 40646 Daffodils and 10314 Dried Flower Centrepiece. As usual, these floral bricks and pieces inspired me to build flowing hair and elegant clothes… Well, mostly. I also turned a rose into Sontaran.
Here at New Elementary, we love a good Parts Festival! But we also love to push boundaries. So how about a Parts Festival containing no new moulds?
Caz Mockett (@cazmockett) reviews 40524 Sunflowers, a set from LEGO® Iconic line coming 1 January 2022 priced US$12.99/ £11.99/ AU$19.99. Buying this set? Consider using our affiliate links, New Elementary may get a commission: USA LEGO Shop | Australia LEGO Shop | UK LEGO Shop/for Europe 'Change region'. Products in this article were provided by LEGO; the author's opinions are their own.
Victor Pruvost (@leewanlego) reviews an upcoming addition to the LEGO® Botanical Collection today: 10289 Birds of Paradise. Buying this set? Consider using our affiliate links, New Elementary may get a commission: UK LEGO Shop | USA LEGO Shop | Australia LEGO Shop, for other countries 'Change Region'. The products in this article were provided for free by LEGO; the author's opinions are not biased by this.
Recently, Thomas Jenkins represented New Elementary in a virtual roundtable interview with the designer of LEGO® Botanical Collection 10280 Bonsai Tree, Nicolaas Vás (aka @PrinceGalidor) and Senior Design Manager Jamie Berard along with Jay's Brick Blog, the Brothers Brick, the Rambling Brick and Blocks Magazine. We each had 8 minutes to ask our questions, so what follows is but a short excerpt from our conversation (edited for readability and clarity). We sent Nick and Jamie our questions ahead of the interview and they came back with some really thoughtful responses. Be sure to check out the other outlets for more.
New Elementary: The pink frogs in the set as well as your own bonsai creations have inspired a number of custom trees blooming with crazy flowers in the AFOL community, are there any that have caught your eye?
Nick: There was a particular tree that I saw from a Japanese builder online and he had basically covered the entire tree with LEGO® Friends hedgehogs and it was fantastic to see that he absolutely gets what this product is about.
Much like building with LEGO® bricks, bonsai is the art of replicating its subject at a much smaller scale. As such, a LEGO bonsai tree is a match made in heaven.
I’m not a fan of plastic flowers, but after a quick glance at the box of the new LEGO® Flower Bouquet I’m already starting to change my mind.
