My Dream Job

Have you ever been to The Happiest Place on Earth? If you have, you probably already know what I am talking about, Disneyland. I would love to work at Disneyland, but my dream job there may be a little different than most. I would want to work in the landscaping department.

Imagine being part of the team that plans and implements the flowered Mickey Mouse at the main entrance, and then comes up with this colorful replacement pictured above for their 50th anniversary year. I know they do most of their work at night and in the early morning hours, before the park is flooded with visitors, but that would be a minor inconvenience for the privilege.

The landscaping at Disneyland is amazing! I had been to Disneyland many times without really paying close attention, but several years ago, the first time I was there during the Christmas season, a beautiful bed of red and white cyclamen caught my eye. I began paying more attention to the landscaping throughout the park.

I have always loved the storybook landscape that you can see from Storybook Land Canal Boats and the Casey Jr Circus Train, with all of it's fairytale settings done in plants in miniature. And the topiaries found at It's a Small World are so creative, but now I began noticing other things.

One day I was sitting in Tomorrowland waiting for the rest of the family to finish on Autopia. (After driving a real car for many years now, Autopia just doesn't hold the same fascination it once did, and I didn't mind being the one to wait with my niece, the baby at the time.) Sitting on a cement wall, I noticed a lovely smell in the air, and then realized that I was sitting next to a planting of rosemary. I began looking around, and found something very interesting about the plants there.

All the plants I could see were herbs, or other edible plants. I found a little plaque that welcomes you to the Tomorrowland gardens. All the landscaping they use in Tomorrowland is edible! And the word is that some of them are used in the salads at the Pizza Planet. (It's really called Redd Rocket's Pizza Port, but my nephew started calling it Pizza Planet, after the restaurant in Toy Story, and the name has stuck for my family.)

There is real bamboo growing around the Indiana Jones attraction and near Tarzan's Treehouse, along with all the other tropical and jungle plants that make Adventureland seem like a jungle.

It is kind of fun to see if you can find how they disguise the working part of Disneyland. Sprinkler controls, and possibly other types of controls, are often covered with something designed to look like the plants where they are hidden. The easiest one of these to spot is in California Adventures Bug's Land, hidden in the giant bamboo. I noticed it when I was on the Heimlich's Chew Chew Train; a box painted to blend in with the bamboo.

I enjoy going to Disneyland. It is great to spend several days with some of my family, exploring The Happiest Place on Earth. Now, each time I go, part of my exploring includes keeping an eye on the landscaping and plants, watching for changes, and dreaming about how fun it would be to work on that crew.