Monday was a really busy day. Because a few of the full time staff were off and the other intern was sick, I was in charge of watering the area of two people. While this seemed like a lot to water I managed to get everything but Indiana Jones done before the park opened and finished Indiana Jones shortly after the park had opened. After that, Paula had me change out some more pots. The pots were located as part of the backstage tour. Geraniums were removed and replaced with torenia, caladiums, and coleus. I was showed where the pots were located and was told to put whatever was available in them. Because this area is considered to be on-stage I was unable to take a picture of my work, but perhaps if I visit later in the summer I can see if they have been changed or not. My day ended by getting rid of some old hanging baskets that were in the greenhouse.
Tuesday was my last official day at Hollywood Studios. To begin the day I watered and removed old leaves inside of ABC Commissary. During this time, the palms inside were washed down with soapy water. I then helped with the cleanup. Then, I watered some of the hanging baskets. After that the Toro was dumped. One of the restaurants opened at 7:30 this morning for breakfast. Around 7:30 I took the Toro to a nearby gate and did weeding for about an hour and a half. One of the beds has a Redbud (Cercis canadensis) and a large number of seedlings were popping up throughout the bed. After weeding, Paula showed Michael and I where we would be moving to as of tomorrow. I will be at Fantasia mini golf as well as the waterparks (Blizzard Beach and Typhoon Lagoon) working with one of the other interns. To end the day Michael and I watered the containers and azaleas over by the bungalows.
Wednesday is my first day in my new area. Today I worked in Fantasia Gardens and Fairways Miniature Golf. There are two 18-hole mini golf courses one that is a putting course and one that resembles a traditional golf course on a miniature scale. The day began by walking the courses and pulling weeds such as Cyperus esculentus Yellow Nutsedge and Hydrocoyle umbellata Dollarweed, picking up any debris which may have fallen overnight such as branches, cutting back any limbs too low or shrubs over the sidewalk, and pruning shrubs that look bad. During the walk through Lance and Ira are also looking for larger projects such as replacement of plants or more in depth pruning that will take longer and cannot be done when guests are present for example there was some Plumbago auriculata Plumbago which needs to be replaced because the shrub crew pruned it back to far and the spacing is off. Then Ira showed us how to trim up the topiaries. There are four near the front entrance and four near the end of the putting course which the other intern and me helped trim. While doing the walk through, we kept an eye out for and picked up any golf balls, successfully identified and avoided poison ivy, and Ira pointed out many of the plants we needed to know such as Ilex cornuta 'Bufordii' Burford Holly, Loropetalum chinensis var rubrum Chinese Fringe-Bush, Rhapiolepis indica Indian Hawthorn, Viburnum odoratissimum Sweet Viburnum, Camellia japonica Camellia, Pittosporum tobira Pittosporum, Rhododendron hybrids Azalea, Rosa hybrids Rose, Quercus viginiana Live Oaks, Lagerstroemia indica Crape Myrtle, Dianella tasmaica 'Variegata' 'Variegated Flax Lily', Liriope muscari 'Evergreen Giant' 'Evergreen Giant Liriope'. Then Mike the manager for Fantasia gardens showed me again how to get to blizzard beach as that is where I will be working for the next week and a half. To end the day, I went with Lance to turn in the golf balls that had been collected (they bring them to the entrance staff about once a month) and pruned Philodendron selloum Selloum by removing any leaves which were on the ground and removing flower buds as they would take energy from the plant.
Thursday I started working at blizzard beach. The morning began by simply driving around and picking up any branches that had fallen. We found that the wash down crew had broken one of the stingers (where they hook up to the control valve for water) which created a leak near runoff rapids so we called that into the manager who then called it into irrigation. While riding around we saw a rat snake on the concrete. We also cut down branches that were low throughout the park and miniature golf course on site. Then we did a walk through and pulled weeds as well as picking up branches which we may not have seen in the morning.
Today was also class day. For class, we had the opportunity to do a backstage tour of The Land which is located within Epcot. The Land consists of greenhouses which exhibit technology for the future in food production. During our tour we had the opportunity to see the pest management lab and learn about the leaf miner fly and how parasitic wasps are used as a biological control. Then, we had the opportunity to see through a window the tissue culture lab and heard about a project they have for the USDA which is looking for plant tissue that is resistant to plum pox virus which affects stone fruit crops. After that we had the opportunity to see the greenhouses where they have different methods of hydroponics and aeroponics. In aeroponics water + nutrients is sprayed on the root as can be seen in the first two images. I thought this was a very interesting system.
We also heard about vertigrow and verticrop systems. A fun fact that I didn't know before is that as cucumbers develop they will take the shape of their container so when the cucumbers are first developing they put a plastic cover which is in the shape of mickey mouse.
Another technique mentioned was the nutrient film technique. Other information about the greenhouses include that for every 200mL of water 1mL of nutrients is supplied. They use blue booties when walking in the sand because of nematodes which can be found on the bottom of your shoes. In The Land they have aquaculture with American eel, shrimp, American alligator, tilapia, bass, catfish, and sturgeon. All of the produce goes to local restaurants. The image to the right is of winter melon and the one below is part of the tropical garden.
Featured plant:
The plant I am featuring this week is one that I was told about when working at fantasia gardens known as Liriope muscari 'Evergreen Giant'. Evergreen Giant Liriope is native to Japan and China. Foliage is dark green, flat, strap-like and arches to 24" long and 3/4" wide. Its habit is 18-24" tall with spreading, clump forming habit that is rhizomatus or stoloniferous. Flowers are a raceme, terminal, and dense. Some say the flowers are like that of a hyacinth and maximum color can be seen from June to November. All of the information about Liriope comes from the plant identification booklet that all of the professional interns received.
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