Learn Hardcore Russian: Вдоль тропы к аттракционам растут зелёные кусты и цветы. - Along the path to the rides grow green bushes and flowers.

Вдоль means “along (the length of something), parallel to it.” It emphasizes that something is arranged or moving beside and along an object’s length.

Examples:

Вдоль дороги растут деревья. – Trees grow along the road.
Мы шли вдоль берега. – We walked along the shore.

It’s different from:

по дороге – “along the road” in the sense of on/along the road’s surface, following its route
у дороги – by/near the road (close to it, not necessarily along its length)

In this sentence, вдоль тропы highlights the line of bushes and flowers running parallel to the path.

What is the grammatical subject of растут, and why is the verb in the plural?

The subject is зелёные кусты и цветы.

This is a compound subject joined by и (“and”):

кусты (bushes) – plural
цветы (flowers) – plural

Together they form a plural subject, so the verb must be plural:

растут – “(they) grow”

Compare:

Растёт куст. – A bush grows. (singular)
Растут кусты. – Bushes grow. (plural)
Растут кусты и цветы. – Bushes and flowers grow. (compound plural subject)

Why do we use растут here and not something like есть or находятся?

Растут comes from расти – “to grow.” It emphasizes that these are living plants growing there, not just existing/located.

Здесь растут кусты и цветы. – Bushes and flowers grow here.

If you said:

Здесь есть кусты и цветы. – There are bushes and flowers here.
Здесь находятся кусты и цветы. – Bushes and flowers are located here.

These sound more like dry statements of existence/location. Растут is the natural verb for plants in Russian and is the most idiomatic choice in this context.

Why is зелёные only written once, before кусты, but seems to describe both кусты and цветы?

In Russian, one adjective can describe several nouns joined by и, as long as the gender and number match.

зелёные кусты и цветы

Both кусты and цветы are masculine in the dictionary but plural in the sentence:

куст → кусты (pl)
цветок → цветы (pl)

Adjective plural for all genders is зелёные.

So зелёные grammatically agrees with both nouns, and Russian allows you to place it just once at the beginning. You could repeat it:

зелёные кусты и зелёные цветы

but that would sound more emphatic or stylistically heavy. The original is more natural.

Why are кусты and цветы in the nominative case?

Кусты и цветы are the subject of the sentence:

(Что?) кусты и цветы – What is doing the action? Bushes and flowers.

The verb растут describes what the subject is doing. In Russian, the subject of a normal, active sentence stands in the nominative case, so:

кусты – nominative plural of куст
цветы – nominative plural of цветок

Could we change the word order to Зелёные кусты и цветы растут вдоль тропы к аттракционам? Would the meaning change?

Yes, that word order is perfectly correct:

Зелёные кусты и цветы растут вдоль тропы к аттракционам.

Meaning: the same.

Differences:

Starting with Вдоль тропы к аттракционам emphasizes the location first: “Along the path to the rides, there grow…”
Starting with Зелёные кусты и цветы emphasizes what is growing: “Green bushes and flowers grow along the path to the rides.”

Russian word order is flexible. The original version is slightly more descriptive, painting the scene from the path outward; your version sounds a bit more neutral.

What is the nuance of тропа compared to дорога or путь?

тропа – a narrow path, usually for walking, often in nature or a park; informal, small-scale.
дорога – a road; can be bigger, for cars, general transportation.
путь – “way, route, path” in a more abstract or formal sense (life path, route of a train, etc.).

In an amusement-park or park context, тропа suggests a footpath or walkway, often smaller and maybe more scenic than a regular road.

What does аттракционы really mean? Is it like English “attractions”?

Аттракционы in modern Russian usually means amusement rides: carousels, roller coasters, bumper cars, etc.

It’s not used as broadly as English “attractions.” If you say:

аттракционы в парке – people will think of fairground rides, not museums or sights.

So тропа к аттракционам is best understood as “the path leading to the rides (in an amusement park).”

How is аттракционам pronounced, and why are there double consonants?

Pronunciation (in IPA): [ɐtrəkˈsʲɵnəm] or more carefully [ətrrəkˈsʲonəm].

Stress: ат-трак-ци-О-нам – the main stress is on -о-: аттракционам.

Spelling details:

тт: double т is kept in spelling but in normal speech it sounds like a single long /t/.
рр: written as a single р, but in careful speech there’s often a noticeable trill.

It’s a loanword (from French via other European languages), and the double consonant reflects its foreign origin. Russian often keeps double consonants from borrowed words in spelling.

Why is it зелёные, not зелёный or зелёная?

Зелёные is the plural form of the adjective “green.” It must agree with кусты и цветы, which are both plural.

Adjective зелёный (green) declines like this:

masc. sing. nom.: зелёный куст – green bush
fem. sing. nom.: зелёная трава – green grass
neut. sing. nom.: зелёное дерево – green tree
plural nom. (all genders): зелёные кусты / цветы / деревья

Since we have multiple bushes and flowers, we need the plural form: зелёные кусты и цветы.