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Reckon your garden is good? Then check out Floriade in Canberra for a little competition.

Words and photography by Simone Costi

It’s like a scene out of a movie. You know the one – where two lovers are running in slow motion towards each other in a field of flowers. That’s Floriade. Flowers as far as the eye can see – but you’re not allowed to run through the garden beds.

Floriade is the biggest spring flower festival in Australia. For four weeks during September and October, over one million blossoms come to life in Commonwealth Park in Canberra.

The majority of the plants are bulbs and annuals, so a fair bit of forward planning is involved. They are planted the previous autumn so they can make their debut in the spring. Although the flowers do bloom at different times, there is always a wonderful bouquet to see. Flowers used vary from year to year, but they often include tulips, irises, daffodils, hyacinths, freesias, violas, chrysanthemums and ranunculas. And within these genus there’s a plethora of species.

But the organizers just don’t go planting the bulbs willy nilly. They actually design patterns in the garden beds and then sow the bulbs accordingly so when they bloom, they create a motif. And this is why it’s called Floriade. The notion comes from the Latin word, ‘floriat’, which means to sketch with flowers.

The first Floriade was in 1988 for the bicentenary and has been held each spring since. Every year, there is a different subject and the garden beds are designed and labeled accordingly. Over the years, themes have included Carnival of Cultures, The Century in Bloom, Poetry in Flowers, The Wonder of Water and most recently Rock ‘n’ Roll in Bloom, which I was lucky enough to visit.

I’ve never seen that many flowers before. It was beautiful, stunning and colourful. And there were lots of bees. Since the flowers bloom at different times, it’s suggested that you visit Floriade a couple of times over the spring. I only spent a day there, and even still I reckon that you should get there early and stay till closing as the colours seem to change during the course of the day.

The area was easy to navigate and wasn’t too large, plus there were plenty of benches to take a seat and rest your feet.

In 2005 the theme was Rock ‘n’ Roll in Bloom and as such, the gardens were designed to reflect this. The beds were labeled after a variety of popular rock songs from the 1960s including Mellow Yellow (so this flower bed was bright yellow), I See Red (literally – that was all you could see – bright red tulips), Blue Suede Shoes (yep, blue flowers), and my favourite Paint It Black, which had the most incredible black tulips.

But there is more than just flowers here. In the Floriade Village there are lots of market stalls selling all sorts of food (I bought some candied macadamias and they were awesome!), crafts, soaps, clothes and of course gardening things. There are also a couple of cafes within the gardens for a bite to eat and cuppa. Plus there are demonstrations and lectures to attend about gardening.

And how could I forget the garden gnome competition. It was, er… very creative… Community groups, businesses and schools submit painted rock ‘n’ roll garden gnomes. I saw hundreds of KISS gnomes, The Wiggles and even Bread, whom unfortunately were actually gnomes made out of bread that the local birds seem to take quite a liking to.

I had a glorious day wandering around Floriade. I took a gazillion photos and probably could’ve take a trillion more. It is definitely worth a visit, so start planning your trip to Canberra’s Floriade this September and October. For a great day out, take a packed lunch and have a picnic, wear a hat and sunscreen and make sure you’ve got comfy shoes on. And – take twice as much film as you thought you’d need!