Between 2002 and 2016, Ornatec's principals were involved in the horticultural delivery of both Disneyland Hong Kong and Disneyland Shanghai — among the highest-profile landscape builds in Asia. A theme park does not move its opening date, which makes it one of the most unforgiving environments in which to install living material.
The character-tree problem
A theme park's landscape has to look established on day one. That calls for hero and character trees — large, sculptural, often irregular specimens that give a place instant maturity. Moving them is a specialist discipline in itself: soil-less root balls raised on gravel mounds, root balls washed and wired by hand, crowns wrapped, root balls shrink-wrapped, and out-of-gauge shipping for specimens too large for a standard container.
The archive documents this end to end for species including Streblus asper, strangler figs, Michelia champaca, Plumeria, Ficus microcarpa and Brachychiton bottle trees — a photographic record from root-ball preparation right through to a cloud-pruned Streblus asper planted and thriving inside the park.
Building the ground to receive them
Great trees fail in poor ground. The Hong Kong work included 9 km of landscape berm construction delivered under a tight programme and through the wet season — temporary hydro-seeding for erosion control, J-channel drainage around each berm, berm cores formed from decomposed granite, perforated subsoil drainage, and topsoil placed two metres thick. The living material is only ever as good as the engineering beneath it.
What the projects left behind
Delivering to an international best-practice standard did more than fill a park. It advanced root-ball management, lifting and installation techniques, product quality and the design palette available to the wider industry — knowledge that Ornatec has carried into every project since, from Macau's casino resorts to the Red Sea coast.
Planning a landmark landscape that needs instant maturity? Send your schedule and we'll advise on specimen sourcing, preparation lead times and installation.