When the planting works for Hong Kong Disneyland at Penny’s Bay were completed in 2005, they were the largest and most high profile that had ever been undertaken in Hong Kong. The soft landscape along the entrance roads to the Disney Theme Park and Resort, around Inspiration Lake, on the screen bunds that encircle the park, and for all the infrastructure facilities and slope areas, covered more than 110ha.
The planting required the manufacture and placement of some two million cubic metres of fabricated topsoil, the laying of 110km of subsoil drainage, and the installation of one of the world’s largest fully computerized irrigation systems. Some 35,000 mature trees and 5,000,000 shrubs, of more than 660 different species, were sourced from across SE Asia, Australia and America, shipped via more than 50ha of temporary nurseries in Shunde and Dongguan, and then planted by TAS, a team of specialist soft landscape works contractors (Tarzan, Asia Landscaping, Shunde Nurseries), under main contractor China State Construction Engineering with the help of landscape architects and horticulturists from CEDD, EarthAsia and Maunsell’s site staff team.
The project changed lives, and the local horticultural industry. Ten years later, three met up again one Saturday morning at the Boat House on Inspiration Lake, and took a walk to see how the planting was doing and to reminisce on ‘what feats were done’ in its creation.
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