The colder-than-usual winter for Florida has been a challenge to homeowner lawns and to horticulture teams at Central Florida’s theme parks.
At Walt Disney World, it meant covering up elaborate topiaries with frost cloths overnight. At Legoland Florida, heaters were set up around the base of the park’s famed banyan tree, a natural staple since the property’s Cypress Gardens days.
“We did do many things to help with our preparation, and we were able to save many things through covering with frost cloth to protect our tender bedding plants and some of our more precious plants,” said Michele Czerkies, a manager for Walt Disney World horticulture.
Disney maintains on-property greenhouses, where some topiaries were stowed along with its flower towers, decorative stacks of blooms.
The two rounds of extended freezing temperatures came as WDW prepared for the Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival, which is now underway.
“You can’t cover all of Walt Disney World. So we just covered our critical points of service,” Czerkies said.
The festival’s look survived thanks to floral vendors and a good plan, she said.
“We make our topiaries, we make our flower towers, we make our floating gardens, but a lot of the color we purchase and plan out a year ahead, and it’s all delivered,” Czerkies said.
“So that was a huge advantage after an event like this, to have all that careful, thought-out planning,” she said.
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Amid thrill rides and broad walkways, landscaping remains a hallmark of Orlando’s parks and resorts. It ranges from basic flower beds and planters to scene-setting and theming for lush areas such as Jurassic Park at Universal’s Islands of Adventure or the tropical atmosphere of Aquatica, SeaWorld’s water park.
“We did see some browning and some discoloration of some of our vegetation in the park, but that’s normal,” said Cory Lytle, technical services director at Legoland Florida.
“The vegetation in the park has been around for quite a long time, and this isn’t necessarily the first time a cold weather snap has actually hit the region,” he said. “So the gardens are still here. They’ve survived this long; I expect them to survive much longer in the future.”
Among the survivors is the banyan tree that was planted in the 1930s, the early years of Cypress Gardens. (Legoland opened on the property in 2011 and has maintained the historic gardens.)
“We take some special care with the banyan tree. We place heaters all around the base of the tree,” Lytle said. “We have teams that are gearing up days in advance to get everything ready to go for the banyan tree and to support its long life.”
The sprawling tree has been measured at about 200 feet across.
“The canopy of it is just so massive, there’s no wrapping, per se, that you technically do for it,” Lytle said.
After the first round of cool weather, some replacement of young plants near the new Galacticoaster attraction was done at Legoland.
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“We have trimmed some. We’ve pruned some. We’ve replanted as needed,” Lytle said. “Our whole park is irrigated in some respect, so we’ve monitored that as well — turn it back if we need to, turn it up a little bit more when that’s necessary.”
Damaged fronds were removed from palm trees near the Crystal Palace restaurant at Magic Kingdom after recent freezes. (Dewayne Bevil/Orlando Sentinel)
Disney World visitors might notice some pruning. For instance, palm trees near Magic Kingdom’s Crystal Palace restaurant and near the entrance of Epcot are almost frond-free. It’s a spikey look.
“What’s left is the middle section of the palm, and that’s where the new palm frond is going to come out. They just took off the ones that were brown and freeze-damaged,” Czerkies said. “We saw some of them opening, because it rained a little bit this last week.”
“All of us are excited because we feel we’re going to have a true spring. And as a native Floridian, that’s not something that we’re used to,” she said.
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