GIE 2005: DisneyScapes

Fall is in full swing and winter is just a few weeks away, but attendees to the 2005 Green Industry Expo enjoyed a few days of fun in the sun during the Orlando, Fla. event held Nov. 2 to 5. During the event, both the Professional Landcare Network and the Professional Grounds Management Society offered tours of the Walt Disney World Resort grounds for an in-depth look at what it takes to maintain the Magic Kingdom and other properties that make up the “Happiest Place on Earth.”

For those who weren’t able to attend the tours (and even those who were), keep reading. Lawn & Landscape magazine was granted an exclusive interview with Dennis Higbie, horticulture director for Walt Disney World Resort, who offered great insights into what it takes to run such a large landscape operation, as well as some philosophies that you can use as you build and maintain landscapes for your own clients.

THE MAGIC MAKERS. Horticulture waits for no man, which is why many lawn and landscape contractors are known for getting their crews out the door before most office workers have had their first cups of coffee. A great work ethic, certainly, but if you come to work for Disney, remember to set your alarm clocks even earlier. 

“We schedule as much work as we can and a typical day for us will start around 4:30 a.m.,” Higbie says, referring to grounds crews for the Walt Disney World theme park properties. “The crews go in early and get the majority of their work done before the parks open at 9 a.m. You may still see some of the gardeners working at that hour, but there’s no earth-moving equipment, no mowers – all of that is out of sight when the guests arrive.”

Along with the early birds, Higbie also has 27 night-owls on staff: ISA-certified arborists that start their work at 11:30 p.m. “In addition to pruning and regular tree care, there are always other things like pulling out or installing large trees,” Higbie says, “We schedule those projects in the middle of the night so we can come in with the large cranes, trailers and other equipment.” Making sure most horticulture crews and heavy equipment are off the grounds during park hours keeps guests safe, but it also keeps the “magic” on a Disney property from being broken by the grinding din of outdoor power equipment.

While you probably won’t see many of the horticulture team’s 600 cast members at the parks during the day, you may be able to meet some on the grounds of Disney’s nearly two dozen resorts. “The flip side of getting our park crews going at 4:30 is that we don’t make a peep on the resorts before 9 a.m.,” Higbie says. “The mower operators will be out around then and while they’re working, they’ll generally stop, let guests pass and even engage them in conversation. That way, all of our guests have a positive experience with the horticulture crews during their resort stay, and once they reach the parks they’re able to really enjoy our work without being bothered.”

Overall, the 600 horticulture cast members, a mix of part-time, full-time and seasonal workers, are divided into six regions – four for parks and resorts, one for Disney’s internal roadways and one for the mixed-use “Downtown Disney” area. The 47-square-mile Disney complex includes 2,000 total acres of green space: four parks, 22 resorts, two waterparks and Downtown Disney. (Disney’s golf courses and sports complexes are maintained separately.) Each region has turf crew, a shrub crew and a crew focused on annual bedding plants, as well as an irrigation technician and a “small projects” crew for landscape enhancements and similar jobs. Most crews have four or five cast members.

SMOOTH OPERATIONS. Managing these scores of skilled workers are the horticulture department’s administrative office, as well as four or five area managers and a regional manager for each region. The interaction between the crews and their managers is what keeps lawn and landscape projects on schedule across the entire Disney complex. “In a place like this with the amount of people we have here, it really functions as a city,” Higbie explains, noting that the entire team meets every morning for safety training and other notes relating to daily crew operations. Then, it’s “off to work they go.”

“We route ourselves so that, for a typical region, the turf team is scheduled to be at a certain place and time with all their equipment to do their next property,” Higbie says. “Within a region, the mowing crews will stay together on a property and the bedding plant crews will stay together for planting and removal of beds, though they may split up for day-to-day routine maintenance.” Maintaining a steady pace on maintenance tasks is what Higbie says keeps the horticulture division on target to meet goals. “In horticulture, the most efficient we can hope to be is to get things done when they need to get done – not any sooner or any later. Through routing and scheduling, we can take a careful look at our operations and staffing and determine whether or not we are hitting our targets.”

Of course, every lawn and landscape professional knows that you can’t always assume that your routes will always go as planned. “Naturally, weather is our biggest challenge,” Higbie says. “Last year we were slammed by three hurricanes. Thankfully, we haven’t gotten hit this year, but we can certainly relate to what the folks in the Gulf Coast region are going through. Even weather that’s not that severe can interrupt our routes. We’re open 365 days a year, and our resorts are open 24 hours a day, so if we miss a day, there’s a tremendous amount of work to get done without being in anyone’s way and without destroying the Disney experience for everybody.”

Higbie says that each region generally has “rainy day” work at the ready should an extended period of inclement weather move in. “We’re quite fortunate here in sunny Florida that such weather is a rarity, but we try to work around it as much as possible,” he says. “If we do have to put off work for an extended period of time, most of the time we’re able to catch up by suspending activities that can be suspended – for example, shrub trimming. We will opt to get the grass mowed by taking forces usually dedicated to shrub trimming to boost our mowing crews. Once we’re back on track, the shrub teams can make up the difference in a relatively short period of time. In rare instances, we’ll work overtime if there’s no other way to get the work finished.”

Beyond weather, Higbie says horticulture crews also have to work around special events, such as weddings that take place on some of the Disney properties. “It might be fine 50 weeks out of the year to mow the Grand Floridian on Thursday at 9 a.m., but for the two other weeks, there might be a reason that it’s not fine,” he says. “Communication between the resorts, the area managers and their crews keeps us appraised of these types of scheduling issues. We always try to stay plugged into our clients’ needs. Whether we think that some even on a property will affect us or not, we always make sure we’re aware of what’s going on. It’s usually the area manager’s responsibility to pay close attention to the property (resort) owner, stay on top of that business and communicate any changes to the crews.”

STORIES IN BLOOM. Another area of communication within the Disney horticulture division is between the Walt Disney World Imagineering staff, Disney’s landscape architects and the landscape crews. Higbie explains that these groups work together to plan new color displays, rotate existing installations, and stay updated on existing plant materials used on the properties. “Walt Disney World and the Disney parks and resorts are all about storytelling, so it’s a big up-front investment in time and talent to get all of the designs where they need to be on opening day,” he says. “In our business, we could nullify the whole theme of magic and storytelling if we didn’t take special care to make sure we use the right materials in the right places.”

Overall, the team installs about 200 new landscape designs a year, about a dozen of which are full landscape renovations. The rest are smaller projects, such as trading out a shrub variety that isn’t thriving for one that will work better.

“Everything that’s brand new is designed by Walt Disney Imagineering, which is responsible for concept and story development,” Higbie says. “We work in partnership with them to ensure that every plant in the palette is safe and that thorny things are kept at a safe distance from guests.”

Higbie says the horticulture team participates in a review process for every new design as it’s developed and that a team of in-house landscape architects has significant input on everything from the plant materials that are chosen for small jobs to the logistics of a multithousand-dollar renovation of a display. To create the landscapes for each Disney property, these designers must be very picky about both color and species.

“With bedding plants, the palette is usually somewhat color-driven; for instance, we want to have a big splash of red at the entrance to the Contemporary Resort,” Higbie explains. “We have a lot of latitude that way, but we also have to pay special attention to the varieties we use in certain areas. At the French Quarter Resort, we don’t want to use ginger because, even though you might see ginger in New Orleans, it’s not going to say “French Quarter” to our guests. Instead, we’ll use something more recognizable.”

Likewise, Higbie points out that you won’t find crotons in the United Kingdom pavilion at Epcot, and putting a sugar maple in the middle of the Polynesian Resort would be incongruous. Instead, they’ll use plants that the designers feel are reminiscent of what someone would expect to see in an English garden or Polynesia, respectively. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean plants will be brought in from far-off lands for that authentic look. “People who visit the Asia area of Disney’s Animal Kingdom have asked if all the plant material was imported from Asia,” he says. “No, it hasn’t – it’s pure storytelling. The materials we use there could be hardy in New Jersey, but if it’s big and leafy and plays into the tropical theme there, we’ll use it.”

Higbie says the horticulture division plans its annuals a year in advance, noting that a year out is the best time to evaluate what’s already been done and what you’ll need for the future. “In horticulture, it’s very easy to learn a lesson a year late,” he says. “Maybe you planted something you thought would work and you find out over the year that it’s not the right plant for that area, in which case you’ve lost a year, or you don’t plan early enough so that when you finally determine what will work best in your landscape, you don’t have enough time to work with your grower to get those materials.”

Instead, Higbie says, Disney will usually schedule the same crop of plant materials for the same time next year, unless they find they’re not happy with a certain display, in which case the team can tell its grower 12 months early what to propagate for the next season. “We’re constantly monitoring the plant material to determine what’s thriving and what’s not, so we can stay on top of a situation where we may need to replace a shrub or something else,” he says. “That’s really the simplest way to do it. We also have software package that knows the square footage of all our landscape beds and how many of each plant we need for proper spacing, so we can make sure to order the right number of plants for an installation. The key is to know what you have out there, keep an eye on it, and work with your grower early if you want to make changes.”

Overall, the landscape designs that are installed and maintained by the Disney horticulture team contribute directly to the organization’s “immersive storytelling” goal. Indeed, this vision, offered by Walt Disney since Disneyland opened in California in 1955, has had beautiful landscapes in mind the whole time. “It goes back to words right out of Walt’s mouth,” Higbie says. “He wanted, ‘something alive; something that could grow. Even the trees will keep growing and things will get more beautiful every year.’ We work every day to make sure we stay true to that vision."