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Flower power: Canberra's most beautiful festival embraces the season and the world

Flower power: Canberra's most beautiful festival embraces the season and the world
Flower power: Canberra's most beautiful festival embraces the season and the world

This is sponsored content for VisitCanberra.

He may have had his hands in the soil and around the bulbs of every single Floriade since it started 32 years ago but head gardener Andrew Forster still gets a kick out of seeing the enjoyment of visitors.

"There's a few things I really love [about the job] but the biggest would be the moment when the first people start to come through and you see all their smiling faces," said Mr Forster.

"It's like Canberra coming out from under its doona, coming out to enjoy the flowers, and welcome in the season.

"Then there's the moment when the bulbs pop their heads through, that's pretty special too."

Mr Forster was a young second year apprentice when he worked on the very first of the events that has since bloomed and blossomed into Australia's biggest celebration of spring.

Last year more than 480,540 people went tiptoeing through Floriade's tulips - and daisies, daffodils, pansies and muscari - an increase of more than 45,000 from 2017.

Even bigger numbers are expected for this year's extravaganza, starting September 14, as well as its "dark side" NightFest, the October event that turns the site at Canberra's Commonwealth Park into a evening wonderland of light shows, great local food and wine, and entertainment. This year headliners include The Veronicas and Busby Marou.

Flowers for peace

While the lure of Floriade's colourful blooms has been bringing people together throughout its history, this year's event is officially focused on that sentiment with the theme, 'World in Bloom'.

It's aim is to showcase the cultures around the world and that also exist in multi-cultural Canberra.

Twenty-one garden beds will be used to represent everything from Japanese waterways, to the lovely lotus flowers symbolising Buddhism.

Mr Forster's pick of those planned is the festival's first indigenous flowerbed, a collaboration between Floriade and The National Arboretum Canberra.

Incorporating more than 6000 bulbs, it will be the first display people will see as they enter this year's Floriade.

With indigenous people involved in the planting, the design is based on an aboriginal shield at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.

The red, yellow and black of the Aboriginal flag will be represented, as well as the Murrumbidgee and Molongo rivers that play an important role in Aboriginal culture.

"The blue of the rivers will be blue parrot tulips with a mix of light and dark blue pansies, so should look pretty spectacular," Mr Forster said.

Flower power: Canberra's most beautiful festival embraces the season and the world
Flower power: Canberra's most beautiful festival embraces the season and the world

Second on his list is the flowerbed that sums up this year's theme with a pattern featuring a collection of open, waving hands to demonstrate international connectedness.

Framed by almost every colour in the rainbow, the background will feature three pink tulip varieties - Bellis Turbo Pink, Tulipa Barcelona and Tulipa First Class.

"It's a nice idea that with the way things are around the world we can have all the countries together here and bring people together," Mr Forster said.

Birds, bums and cheeky hares

Getting an event the size of Floriade bedded down has its challenges, unpredictable and predictable.

From marauding birds to some resident hares at Commonweath Park, Mr Forster said there are some stresses involved in getting the floral fiesta ready to launch and then keeping it looking its best all month.

For two years after he first took over as head gardener in 1997, he slept overnight at the site sometimes working until 3am and starting again at 5am to get everything done.

"I don't do that anymore - we have things fairly down pat these days," he said.

"The biggest challenge is the timing and being able to get everything in, we get some pretty cold weather in Canberra.

"We try to program it so we get everything planted by the end of June, by the Queens birthday long weekend, to give the plants the chance to grow and get established.

"There are the birds too - especially the cockatoos; if the plants weren't covered they would strip everything.

"We have a couple of hares in the park too. They come in and dig and make a few holes here and there."

It's the human creatures that can also cause headaches for the gardening team - over zealous visitors who sit in the flowerbeds to have their photos taken.

"We would ask that people try to avoid leaving their bum prints in the poppies," Mr Forster said.

Floriade 2019 runs over 30 days from Saturday September 14 to October 13. Apart from the floral displays there'll be plenty of other activity going on so keep your eye out for the release of the full program. NightFest comes to life for four nights from Thursday 3 October to Sunday 6 October with spectacular lighting displays created by internationally-renowned lighting specialists, and entertainment including live performances from The Veronicas, Busby Marou, and Electric Fields. This year also features the return of Comedy Nightfest featuring Urzila Carlson, Dave Hughes, Becky Lucas, Anthony Tomic, Sam Taunton, Guy Montgomery, and The Stevenson Experience.

This is sponsored content for VisitCanberra.