Week 4: Hollywood Studios and the Nursery/Tree Farm

I'm back at Hollywood Studios due to illness with the gardener working at Fantasia gardens.

Monday I waited for the gardener at Fantasia gardens to show up but later found out that the gardener was sick and was brought over to Hollywood Studios. It was a busy morning starting off by removing plants which were in a pot near star tours which was used for pictures during star wars weekends which is now over. The area was then pine strawed. After that, two dead arborvitae trees were removed and replaced along with a hole from a tree that had previously been removed located in the beginning of the backlot tour. Then, shrubs were removed and replaced with Viburnum in a bed near the lights, camera, action stunt show. Finally, some bird-of-paradise was picked up from one of the resorts and a meeting was attended. Multiple trips to the dump were also made throughout the day. Overall, the day was busy.

Chair on left is pictured
http://www.waymarking.com/gallery/image.aspx?f=1&
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Tuesday I had the opportunity to work at the nursery/tree farm. First, I went out to help with the Alice in Wonderland topiaries by putting in new Ficus pumila Creeping Fig or Climbing Fig to replace any dead or missing areas. A dibble is used to create the holes I worked on the two chairs on the left and right sides of the Alice in Wonderland topiaries.

Image from: http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/LocationPhotoDirectLink-
g34515-d85986-i61061885-Disney_s_Contemporary_Resort-Orlando_Florida.html

Then, we headed over to Contemporary resort to replace Alternanthera located in the bottom front and back of the Mickey topiary as pictured to the right. Then. I went with Joe the foreman on the job to pick up some paint while the other workers repainted the hands of Mickey. After finishing the Mickey topiary we headed back to the nursery where I cut back Ficus pumila found on the Eeyore topiary used for the flower and garden festival. This topiary will not be used again until the festival so it was cut back rather drastically. After that, I had the opportunity to help Rosie with putting together hanging baskets. Baskets begin with a 16" spaghnum moss hanging basket liner which is then filled with pre-moistened soil. I was planning two different colors of Vinca Catharanthus roseus in the hanging baskets. There are three places for the hooks to attach the chains for hanging. Between these hooks three plants are planted along the edge of the basket by using index finger to make hole and angling the plant towards the outside of the basket to ensure that the plant grows outwards. Three plants are also planted in the middle of the basket making for a total of 12 plants per hanging basket. The baskets will then be grown out for 3 months at which time they will go to a designated area within the park. A tag is put on the chain designating the location where the hanging baskets are to be put and what day they will be ready. Chains are then clipped to the hanging baskets. I also helped with watering and clean-up. Overall, I would say that working in the nursery was very interesting and gave me a different perspective on horticulture at Disney. Just a quick note all of the plants that I used today were grown in plugs and purchased. Disney buys almost all of the plants used from growers in the area rather than producing them at the nursery.

I also had the opportunity to discuss my project today. Instead of creating a plant ID app I will be coming up with ideas to improve the butterfly garden at the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival and activities to engage people within the garden particularly children. The activities need to be easy to do as there is not a lot of people available to help out with activities.

Wednesday morning I helped Mariana to water her hanging baskets while she went off to get her annual hearing test. After I finished watering, I went with Todd and helped weed an area backstage as well as remove old mulch and put down new mulch which is a different color.

Thursday was a shorter day today because we went on a field trip for class so we had to be on the bus by 11am and thus left work when break is set to begin at 10am. I ended up weeding the entire time from 4:30 until 10am. We weeded one small area in the park and then around the parking garage backstage. There was a lot of wandering jew in the bushes which is what I was pulling in the picture to the right.

For class today we visited Leu gardens which is located just minutes from downtown Orlando. The city gives 1.5 million to the gardens every year to help with its operation. Within the garden we were able to go through the home demonstration gardens, walk through some of the trial gardens that various breeders use, the vegetable garden, rose garden, and the palm/cycad area.

 Some interesting facts I learned while there include that the garden opened in 1961. 60% of their visitors are from outside of Florida. They host over 300 weddings a year with sometimes 2-3 per day. 97% of caladiums found in the world are grown in Florida. They have rare plants including the stinking cedar which one of 123 genotypes that they learned how to propagate. A fungus has wiped out many of the plants but in their natural wiregrass habitat (so named as it easily ignites with lightning) smoke will wipe out the fungus. Within the vegetable garden, they have problems with the squash being aborted and not getting to a mature size due to it not being pollinated so they put agastache around it to attract bees. All produce is donated to local homeless shelters. Finally, the rose garden is the only garden in which preventative maintenance is done which occurs every 7-10 days depending upon the weather.

The image above and the one to the right are pictures of the benches for the enabling garden which is used in horticulture therapy. Recently, I have become interested in horticultural therapy especially after writing a research paper about it for one of my classes. This fall semester I will be taking a class on therapeutic horticulture taught by Jean Larson who is in charge of horticultural therapy at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. Horticulture Therapy at Leu Gardens started in 1992 to encourage motor skills related to individuals with disabilities.The program at Leu gardens allows assisted living facilities to bring in clients for a period of 6-8 weeks every Wednesday and do a variety of nature related activities. This program is free.  (http://www.leugardens.org/classes/horticulture_therapy.htm)

In walking through the enabling garden where horticulture the raised benches allow for people in wheelchairs to garden and as you can see in the image to the right above the benches allow for wheelchairs to get under the bench. They can fit one on each side of the bench. There is also an area of raised grass as can be seen in the image to the left which allows for people in wheelchairs to easily scoot out of the chair and read or lay in the grass which is something that would ordinarily take a lot of effort but is easier because of the height.



Leu gardens also does conifer trials to determine what conifers can handle the heat of Florida. One conifer that they know for sure can handle the heat is Podocarpus. The area pictured to the right is relatively new as it is located within the palm/cycad area where trees were damaged during hurricane Charlie. Our tour guide told us that on 9/13/04 (which was Friday the 13th) a tornado came through the garden and damaged over 200 trees that had to be removed and were mostly laurel oaks. This has opened up many areas that used to be heavily shaded and is causing damage to plants that were used to the shade.

To the left is a picture of the butterfly garden which we walked through while visiting the garden.

Here is a picture of the horticulture and pest management interns as we visited Leu gardens. I really enjoyed the trip and getting to see another public garden. As many of you know I am hoping to work at a public garden when I graduate.







Friday morning started the same as Thursday ended. Emmi and I were weeding for the first four and a half hours. Then, we helped one of the teams to remove mulch. After break, we watered the yard, Emmi watered the back and the greenhouse while I watered in front of the trailer where the shrubs are found. To end the day we helped cut back Catharanthus roseus found in the yard which was starting to get leggy.

Plant of the week:

podocarpus-macrophyllus-podocarpus-japanese-
Dino_Turf_Nursery_South_Florida_Miami
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Podocarpus macophyllus or Japanese Yew is the plant of the week. Its native habitat is central and southwest Japan. Japanese yew is a slow, upright grower that is narrow, columnar, compact and densely leaved. It can grow to be 50 feet in height. The fruit is a drupe-like green which is ovoid and 1/2" in diameter that grows above a purple edible aril. Foliage is flat, linear leaves that grow to be 2-3" long with a prominent mid-rib and are lighter green beneath. Flowers are inconspicuous. Podocarpus is used throughout the landscape at Disney as a hedge.