Continue to flower and grow

The philosophies ingrained in Disney’s horticulture can be used in a variety of ways, not just to create natural boundaries and eye-catching vistas in the parks, but in our own homes as well. Today we’ll take a stroll through the Twinnings’ Tea Garden, from the 2008 International Flower & Garden Festival, while discussing a few of the fundamentals that go into creating an English-style country garden (courtesy of the Secrets of Disney’s Glorious Gardens by Kevin Markey).

Compactness – Most English gardens, especially within cities, are compact for the sheer reason of spatial limitations. Yet, the crowding of plants allows the garden to have a more natural, overgrown, and wild element to it. As well, with the plants packed in so tightly, the ability for weeds to grow is considerably less.




Containment – Fences, walls, or a row of hedges are all common devices used to contain a garden or to keep unwanted guests out of the garden. Placing some variety of border around a garden can also call attention to it as a focal point of the landscape.








Longevity – Plants vary on when they bloom. To keep a garden blooming all year, or through a single season, be sure to rotate plants with the season and use long-blooming plants that will continue to add color to your garden throughout its life.









Variety – The variety of plants in your garden should be in keeping with the wild theme of a country garden, and will also add dimension and palpability. Mix a variety of styles and types of plants, like herbs, perennials, annuals, shrubs, etc. until you reach your desired level of wild beauty.







Simple Plan – Give your country garden its own backdrop with a trellis, high fence, wall, shed, whatever structure you can find within your space. To complete the natural effect of the garden, do not plant the rows in a straight fashion, allow them to interweave with one another.






I hope you can find some time this evening to sit back with a nice cup of tea, admiring your own garden, as the sun begins to set. As for me, I think I hear the kettle whistling.

If you had wings

Last week we found a few guidelines for Wildlife Conservation Action. One of these ideas was to create habitats for wildlife in your backyard. One of my favorite ways to create habitats on my playground, or my very big backyard that I spend most of my day in, is to plant a butterfly garden. Planting a butterfly garden, coincidentally, is also one of the easiest ways to assist with conservation efforts, and a simple, effective, and hands-on method of showing, rather than telling, your children how they can affect they world around them as well.

What makes a beautiful and successful butterfly garden? Well, today we are going to take some tips from both the handout provided at this year’s International Flower and Garden Festival and Kevin Markey’s Secrets of Disney’s Glorious Gardens.

Butterflies gain energy from the light, and the plants that attract them generally thrive in the sunshine. So, CREATE the garden in a sunny area.

Butterflies perch on stones or bare soil to spread their wings and bask in the sun to gain energy for flight. SET flat stones in the garden for perches.

A screen of shrubs can also provide shelter from wind and weather. GROW vines on a fence to create an overnight roosting area.

Butterflies are active from spring to fall, so ideally your garden should be, too. PLANT flowers that will bloom and provide nectar throughout the year.

Butterflies are first attracted to flowers by color. Groupings of flowers are easier for butterflies to see than single flowers. USE large splashes of color in your garden.

Butterflies cannot drink from open water but prefer shallow puddles and damp areas. DEVELOP damp areas that invite butterflies to drink.

Adult butterflies eat not only nectar but also rotting fruit, tree sap, dung, and mud. ADD feeding stations to your garden by placing rotting fruit in places you frequently find butterflies.

Most garden pesticides are toxic to butterflies. Instead of pesticides, try horticultural soaps, oils, beneficial insects, or removing pests by hand. AVOID pesticides.

Now that we know what our garden needs, all we need to know now is what type of plants provide the best nectar for butterflies. Here is a list of beautiful plants that will work wonderfully in a butterfly garden:

Acanthus
Bee Balm
Butterfly Bush
Chickweed
Coneflower
Coreopsis
Dianthus
Firebush
Frost Flower
Honeysuckle
Jatropha
Mallow
Milkweed
Nasturtium
Phlox
Plumbago
Star Cluster
Shrub Verbena
Queen Anne’s Lace
Thistle
Wisteria

For more information on gardening the Disney way, I highly recommend Secrets of Disney’s Glorious Gardens, by Kevin Markey.

Flora, Food and Fun

Are Epcot’s festivals simply becoming modified versions of one another? At this point does it matter if you visit in the spring or the fall, because both the International Flower & Garden Festival and the International Food & Wine Festival are beginning to offer similar opportunities? As with most conversations that deal with Walt Disney World the answer is not a simple yes or no.

The Marketplaces, the little food serving cottages and the longtime standard the International Food & Wine Festival, crept into this year’s incarnation of the International Flower and Garden Festival. Flower and Garden’s kiosks focused on items grown in gardens, which put fruits and vegetables at the forefront of every dish. Food and Wine’s venues always focus on the freshest ingredients, but there generally isn’t a theme that runs through all of the Marketplaces as there was with Flower and Garden in 2013. Also, the number of Marketplaces needs to be considered. Flower and Garden weighed in with only about a dozen venues while Food and Wine typically boasts an assortment of kiosks just under thirty.

Switching main components, what about topiaries at the International Food and Wine Festival? They are there, but like the Marketplaces at Flower and Garden, there are nowhere near a comparable number in the fall. The garden areas of World Showcase are well manicured all year round, but during Food and Wine they do tend to take a slant towards ingredients in dishes. Cabbage in Morocco, pineapples and peppers in the promenade entrance, and the list goes on and on. So, while there aren’t as many topiary figures, the gardens are still an attraction unto themselves during Food and Wine.

The Festival Center, housed in the former Wonders of Life pavilion, is always abuzz with activity no matter which event you are attending. There is a difference, however, in who the special guests are. Chefs and culinary experts arrive in the fall to help guests in their kitchens and prepare some amazing dishes. Garden designers and horticulturists come along in the spring to assist guests in getting the most of their outdoor spaces. Even the merchandising opportunities, aside from the typical logo gear of the given event, are dramatically different.

Then there are the intangibles. Where Food and Wine has extra Marketplaces, Flower and Garden has water wise, butterfly, and creative gardens. Both have playgrounds for children to climb on when they get bored with their parents’ fawning over the food or flowers, and these play areas are generally tied into an upcoming or recent film release children would be interested in.

So, are the festivals becoming mirror images of each other? No. Are they utilizing the best aspects of both during either festival? Yes.

Food and flowers have both been ingrained in the fabric of Epcot since the beginning, long before there were even festivals to celebrate either of them. With the inclusion of Marketplaces into Flower and Garden, Epcot has given guests yet another reason to want to spend more time at the festival. Granted I would love to see the dishes offered up differ bit more from the Food and Wine offerings, beef to pork sliders and changing the cheese in the tomato salad doesn’t seem like to big a leap to me, but it was only the first year. Pristine gardens have always been a staple of Food and Wine, so it’s never been seen as a blending of the two, and yet it most certainly is.

If all guests are doing is walking casually around World Showcase, noshing here and there and taking note of the beautiful gardens, then I don’t suppose it truly matters during which festival time they visit. However, for those who truly take time to get under the surface of an event and want to take some tips home, even just those printed on placards in the gardens, it absolutely matters. Cooking aficionados aren’t going to gleam as much from a horticulturist as the gardening enthusiast is, and vice versa with chefs. Allowing the events to slightly bleed over into one another doesn’t detract from Flower and Garden or Food and Wine, it simply makes them a more accurate representation of the park in which they are housed and gives each a wider group of guests to appeal to.

My garden sure looks swell

We here at the Main Street Gazette love to talk about food, but today we’re taking a step back from prepared meals and looking into where food comes from. No, we’re not talking about huge fields of wheat, or chicken coops that are larger than my house, we’re getting back to basics and looking into the backyard garden, specifically to the varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables available in one plot from the 2010 International Flower and Garden Festival. While most guests don’t think of the festival as the place for vegetables, instead exploring the displays, blooms, and landscaping techniques, the patch surrounding the American Gothic topiaries of Mickey and Minnie offered a beautiful manicured garden that was also functional for daily cooking.The garden, which was located between Disney Traders and Port of Entry, featured not only the topiaries of Mickey and Minnie, but also vats of milk, hay bales, plow, a miniature windmill, and small water tower. The real stars of the show, however, were the rows upon rows of vegetables and blossoms than ran through the plot. Each particular plant was given its own ‘handmade’ sign at the beginning of the row with words and a picture (perfect for the beginning readers, f.y.i.), but with a distinctly Disney touch. During the festival season, Mickey and Minnie were growing Geppeto’s Garlic Chives, Ursula’s Onions, Peter Pan’s Peas, King Louie’s Bananas, Millet, Mickey’s Beanstalk Beans, Kanga’s Purple Kale, Pinocchio’s Radiccio [sic], Stitch’s Strawberries, Lilo’s Lettuce, Nasturtiums, Pocahontas’ Maize, Minnie’s Mini Tomatoes, Fairy’s Fennel, and Rabbit’s Carrots.I can only imagine the wonderful meals and salads that could be created with these ingredients. However, this garden got me to thinking, why isn’t Disney packaging seeds with these titles? True, there is Mickey’s Mini Gardens available inside The Land, but a full fledged Disney garden is an opportunity to cross-pollinate environmental education (what grows in your neighborhood), literacy (plant names, descriptions, recipes, and care instructions), horticulture (care instructions), cooking and nutrition (recipes), mathematics (plotting out the garden and recipes), and would facilitate getting out of the house and playing/working outside. While the seed packets could be sold throughout Walt Disney World, the initiative would have a website with ideas on plotting out a garden and could help with the logistics of each vegetable row (each seed needs to be X inches apart), have printable and colorable signs for each item, and have easy recipes to create, or rather help create, once the vegetables are harvested. Including social tools, such as an ability to share photographs of gardens of completed meals, would only enhance the experience.While no such gardening unit is in the works with Disney, at least not that I am aware of, it would be a terrific step in the education of tomorrow’s leaders. In the meantime, the gorgeous raw ingredients of Mickey and Minnie’s garden will have to be admired during the International Flower and Garden Festival each year. Admired and, well, making me hungry.

Majestic gardens

Speaking of the landscape of Main Street U.S.A., Kevin Markey in Secrets of Disney’s Glorious Gardens said, “…evokes turn-of-the-century, small-town America with formal Victorian gardens, manicured lawns, and shade trees.” Left out, however, are the finer details of the Plaza Rose Garden. The rose garden, positioned just below Cinderella Castle, offers a quiet walk, a shaded pavilion to sit under, some photogenic topiaries, and some truly lovely flowers to see and smell. While passersby may take notice of the elegant garden, what most do not realize is that the Plaza Rose Garden has been honored by the All-America Rose Selections, Inc.

The AARS plaque in the garden states that Walt Disney World is, “contributing to the common interest in rose growing through its efforts in maintaining an outstanding public rose garden.” Though this accreditation was bestowed upon Walt Disney World in 1985, it stands true to this day, as those who take some time to enjoy the blooms in the Plaza Rose Garden seldom leave without thoughts of their own rose garden.

For those you who may not be familiar with what, precisely, the AARS is, let’s look at what they have to say for themselves:

All-America Rose Selections is a nonprofit association dedicated to the introduction and promotion of exceptional roses. The AARS runs the world's most challenging horticultural testing program, and consistently recognizes roses that will be easy to grow and require minimal care by today's busy homeowner.Since 1938, the AARS testing program has encouraged the rose industry to improve the disease tolerance, ease of care, and beauty of roses. Today, the AARS program is one of the most successful and highly regarded of its kind, having brought to the forefront some of the most popular roses in history, such as Peace, Knock Out and Bonica. AARS Winners are labeled with the AARS red rose seal of approval to distinguish them from other plants in the nursery.

The Plaza Rose Garden is one of only three AARS accredited rose gardens in Florida, the other two being The John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota and Sturgeon Memorial Rose Garden in Largo. So, unless you are a local, I highly recommending that on your next visit to the Magic Kingdom you take some time to, well,… stop and smell the roses.

For those of you interested in finding your own local rose garden, the AARS has them all viewable by state on their website.

EPCOT '94 Springs into Bloom

Later this week, the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival will blossom for its sixteenth year. This festival is the most family-friendly of the events held at Epcot, and aside from the shoots, sprouts and blooms that will erupt with color and fragrance, the Flower and Garden Festival is never the same festival twice. Today’s Back Issue takes a look at the first festival, as presented in the April 28, 1994 issue of Eyes & Ears, for glimpse into what the Cast Members thought about the event that was about to unfold.

EPCOT ‘94 will bloom with the color and beauty of floral wonders during the inaugural EPCOT International Flower and Garden Festival Presented by Better Homes and Gardens, April 29 through June 5.

During the five-week festival – a first for the Walt Disney World Resort – more than 30 million buds will burst into bloom throughout World Showcase and Future World. Flower and garden lovers will be able to participate in daily conducted tours of the gardens, as well as backstage growing areas and greenhouses. Lectures will be presented by internationally known horticulturists and Disney experts. During the flower festival, Guests can go behind-the-scenes to see where topiaries and other floral exhibits come to life. The “Backstage Horticulture” tour – offered each Friday through Sunday during the festival – will take Guests from the Theme Park to the Walt Disney World Tree Farm and Nursery. Garden enthusiasts also can enjoy a guided “Gardens of the World” tour each Monday through Thursday during the festival.

Guest speakers include Dr. Marc Cathey, President of the American Horticultural Society (April 29 – 30); Roger Swain, host of television’s Victory Garden (May 6 – 7); ethnobotanist, conservationist and author Mark Plotkin (May 13 – 14); noted garden author Suzanne Bales (May 20 – 21); Rayford Redell, author of the best-selling Growing Good Roses (May 27 – 28); and Tom MacCubbin of the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (June 3 – 4).

Disney horticulturist will discuss and demonstrate “Gardening with Mickey” in a series of presentations, from the fascinating way in which gardens help tell a story to Environmentality in the garden of the ‘90s. Other sessions will focus on everything from the basics of gardening to the art of topiary gardening.

Even top Florida artists who celebrate the beauty of flowers in their paintings are planning to participate during a weekend focusing on “art in the garden.”

“Horticulture has always been integral to our ‘show’ – that is, to the Guest experience at our resort,” said Katy Moss Warner, Director of Horticulture and Environmental Initiatives. “Usually it’s a subtle complement to theming, but this festival brings our very special horticultural traditions – and our Horticulture Cast Members – to the forefront. More than 60 Horticulture Cast Members,” Katy explained, “will be giving lectures, and conducting tours during the five-week event. Of course, our talented Horticulture Cast Members have been working hard for months to make the event a reality. In addition to EPCOT Horticulture Cast Members, those from other areas were also tapped for their creative ideas, which will be showcased throughout EPCOT Center. The festival is a great way for Guests to see the variety of gardening techniques used at Walt Disney World Resort – from dainty hanging baskets to giant topiaries.”

Some of the extraordinary visual features of the festival will be Fantasia Gardens, with twirling topiary hippos, ostriches and alligators plus World Showcase Topiary Plaza with 25 other animated Disney characters “sculpted” of living plants. Brand new topiary creatures “born” just this spring will depict favorite characters from Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. At the EPCOT festival, Guests will see Belle’s beauty like never before: an 8-foot-4-inch topiary, a shapely growth of ivy covering a metal frame. Standing in the garden near Belle and the Beast will be their ever-faithful servants, Lumiere and Mrs. Potts – the latter weighing in at 1,200 pounds. Other guests at this floral affair include Aladdin on his flying carpet and Genie. The new topiaries are joined by a host of classic Disney character topiaries, including Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Winnie the Pooh.

An amazing horticultural display, including perennials, flowering trees, award-winning rose gardens, flowering baskets and exotic bonsai trees – plus some 165,000annuals in more than 250 freshly planted outdoor beds – will highlight the nations of World Showcase and pavilions of Future World. Even flowering fruits and vegetables in The Land’s greenhouses are part of the show. All are being planned for a maximum bloom during the festival.

“Thirty-four million Americans turn to Better Homes and Gardens each month for inspiration and guidance, and gardening is one of their greatest passions,” said Garden Editor Douglas A. Jimerson. “We’re delighted to be celebrating gardening at EPCOT ‘94 this spring.”

An Elegant Tea Garden

Last year the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival added a new tour to the repertoire of events taking place during the festival, the Royal Tea Garden Tour. While there had been a tea garden tour available on select days for several years, this addition, which comes with a fee, doubled the amount of tour time, provided guests with the opportunity to ensure their spot ahead of time, and provided food and beverages. The Royal Tea Garden Tour proved so successful that it has returned to this year’s festival. It proved to be one of my favorite experiences during the festival last year, and I’m hopeful that the minor hiccups have been smoothed out this year. With this year's festival a little more than one week away, let’s take our own tour of the tour and give you an idea of what you’re in for should you decide to partake in this experience.

For starters, the tour starts in the early morning before World Showcase is open. Now, if you are aware of how World Showcase actually works, you’ll know that guests are permitted to walk through the UK pavilion at park opening as it sits along the walkway to International Gateway. However, it is still rather quiet at this time, with other guests not wandering amongst the tour group causing distractions. The tour itself meanders along the garden path behind The Tea Caddy exploring the various tea producing plants that make up the garden. The tour is presented by a Twinings of London representative that is well-versed in the history, craftsmanship, and flavor profiles of all things tea. Black, green, herbal, and white teas, how they are processed and created, are all covered in this tour. In fact, the tour even goes into the history of how tea came to be in bags rather than loose. There is a lot to cover in only a 45 minute tour, but you’ll be amazed at how much you’ll learn.

As an avid tea drinker, coffee and I aren’t friends, I can credit this tour with turning me on to two of my favorite teas: Earl Grey with Lavender and Buttermint. Aside from Christmastime, these two teas have become my morning and afternoon staples, and it is all thanks to what I learned and sampled on the Royal Tea Garden Tour.

Speaking of samples, the tour may last less than one hour, but you’ll definitely want to make sure you’ve given yourself enough time for the snacks that are available at the end. For starters, you can choose from a variety of flavors for your own hot cup of tea. Paired with this cup are traditional English scones. The scones come in a pair and feature a savory Irish cheddar scone and a sweet scone with raisins. The little snack boxes also come with two accompaniments, clotted cream with jam and an earl grey butter.

This year’s set-up for the food seems to have taken into account the crowding issue that seemed a regular occurrence last year when participating guests had to make their way through The Tea Caddy to collect their to-go boxes and tea, all of which was arranged in one of the smaller rooms of the shop. This year, the tea and scones will be served in the Rose & Crown Dining Room, which feels like a well thought out shift in location.

The only other concern I have from the first version of the Royal Tea Garden Tour was the ability to hear the presenter. Guests were constantly jostling to get closer to our guide as the ambient sounds of the park and distance from the guide all led to participants regularly asking for sections to be repeated or grumblings about not being able to hear. Many tours at Walt Disney World utilize earpieces to ensure everyone has the same experience, and I hope this change is considered for this year’s version of the tour.

It is hard to argue with those who are fine with the free tours provided during the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival. The addition of more time isn’t much of a selling point, nor is the fact that the tour happens during one of the quieter times of the day. I also can’t say that the cup of tea and pair of scones are, on their own, worth the $18.00 cost of the tour. However, when taken as a whole, I think there is a definite value being provided by the Royal Tea Garden Tour. Not feeling rushed, being able to ask all the questions I care to, actually going through much of the history and process of tea making, and having tea and scones at the end, all make this a truly worthwhile excursion in my book and definitely something I will be looking to take part in again this year.

An uplifiting and refreshing tea experience

Perhaps because I love tea and I am looking at creating my own tea container garden, or maybe because so often the plants that are used to create teas are not showered with the same love and devotion as a flowering plant like a rose or daffodil are, or it could be as simple as the tea garden in the United Kingdom is one of the most creative and gorgeous gardens of the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival. No matter the reason, this small corner of the United Kingdom pavilion, filled with tea cup and saucer containers is always at the top of my list of fantastic gardens from the festival.As the festival began winding down and closing up shop last weekend, so too is the Main Street Gazette’s series on some of the spectacular garden displays from this year’s event. Saving my favorite for last, the tea garden is made possible in part by Twinings. Throughout the garden the tea cup planters are filled to the brim and overflowing with plants that used to create specific teas, complete with tea bag labels hanging over the rim of the cups. Small plaques stand alongside each container giving the name of the tea, the plants included in the cup, and information on flavors, production of teas, and uses of each plant.While some of this information maybe extraneous to non-tea drinkers or gardeners who do not wish to cultivate their own teas, the mood created by the setting of the garden and the aromas of the plants in the garden are enough to calm even the most wild of spirits.The Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival is, far and away, my favorite event housed at Walt Disney World each and every year, and this showcase is my favorite of the festival. Though this year’s event has already begun fading into memory, I cannot wait to see what they have brewing for us next year.

America the Bountiful

When you look at the festival and events at Walt Disney World, it is less about major overhauls and more about finding the little tweaks that could make a big difference. In the case of the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival, the food is great, but the flowers are still the stars. Guest come to see the perfume garden in France, the bonsai in Japan, and the gussied up gardens all around World Showcase.

Where most pavilions have a specific identity they adhere to during the International Flower and Garden Festival, there is one pavilion that lacks that specific garden identity, The American Adventure. In recent years it has been utilized as an exploration of container gardens that grow needed vegetables and an ABCs of flowers and vegetables. I love Toy Story as much as anyone, but I’m not sure that is a permanent long-term answer for the pavilion’s Flower and Garden showcase.

The pavilion is filled with inspiration of how to retool this garden to maximize its impact. Patterned gardens based off of the flags of the United States is a great idea, but there really isn’t enough space for to create such grand palates. So much of our history comes from our literature and a garden highlighting the scents inherent to American poetry (from Walt Whitman’s When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d to Lydia Maria Child’s Over the River and Through the Wood) would be lovely, but perhaps a bit too cerebral.

If you don’t have enough room to explore the breadth of differences from all across the fifty states or to cover the entirety of poetic scents, what about utilizing the sculptures from inside the American Adventure theater? Flanking both sides of the theater are a series of sculptures dedicated to the ideals and strengths that have made this country what it is today. The Spirits include Freedom, Tomorrow, Self-Reliance, Adventure, Pioneering, Knowledge, Heritage, Independence, Innovation, Discovery, Compassion, and Individualism.

Now, I’m not thinking of this as a way to recreate the sculptures out in the courtyard, as that wouldn’t create a must-see environment year after year. To make this an experience that guests will come back to time and again we need to infuse the sculptures with life, a la the living sculptures seen around Pleasure Island or the Captain Hook living topiary from advertisements this year. Imagine guests taking a picture with the Spirit of Self-Reliance suddenly placing its hat atop their head, the Spirit of Knowledge posing as if it were giving a lecture to the guests, or the Spirit of Adventure letting guests take their turn at the wheel. There are a lot of sculptures with a lot of range to interact with guests that could really bring up the status of the garden.

The American Adventure should be a focal point, and not a passing thought, for guests visiting the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival. Bringing the Spirit sculptures out of the theater and into the gardens, complete with patriotic or home gardening backdrops, would be a way to maximize the impact of the space The American Adventure has.

Floriculture performance trials

Each spring, Epcot bursts into an artist’s palate of colors. From the front gate to the back wall of The American Adventures, blooms and blossoms fill in every available nook, cranny and corner. While not officially a part of the event, the entire Walt Disney World Resort always appears to be filled with more vibrant plant life during the event. There is, however, one bed officially tied to the International Flower and Garden Festival that does not reside inside Epcot’s gates, although it does hug one of the park’s borders.Guests walking up from the Epcot Resort Area come through the International Gateway. There, in a large oblong garden bed, are over two hundred varieties of plant life. This garden is looking ahead to future festivals and highlights a form of horticulture known as floriculture. Floriculture focuses on creating new breeds of plants, with an emphasis bedded plants, flowers, and greenery. Once a new form of a plant has been created, it is assigned a number, tested in a variety of growing environments, given a scientific name and, finally, arrives at a local garden center or nursery.The flower bed found in the International Gateway is the combined efforts of Walt Disney World horticulturists and the Florida Nursery, Growers and Landscape Association (FNGLA). As a test site, this garden is designed to ascertain each individual plant’s ability to flourish in the harsh climate factors of Florida. The six week study will result in some new flowering plants coming to Florida garden centers, while others go back to the drawing board. With potentially two hundred new plant varieties, upcoming International Flower and Garden Festivals could see these blooms in their beds as soon as next year.As an aside, those of you who know this area and its history well, you’ll notice a missing structure in the first photograph above. The flower bed was once the turning point for trams ferrying guests from resorts to Epcot’s second gate. A covered waiting area with corrals was needed for the tram stop. When tram service was discontinued, the area was left unchanged, save for a tarp that covered the sign announcing the tram station. This waiting area was recently dismantled, but signs of its place in the geographical history of Walt Disney World remain.