Conservation the focus of begonia festival

IT’S less than four weeks until this year’s Ballarat Begonia Festival, which will feature free activities, entertainment and educational experiences.

Now in its 73rd year, the event – based at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens – will focus on conservation of native flora and fauna.

Headline act The Last Numbat is a large-scale interactive installation that uses puppetry to tell the story of the endangered marsupial.

Highlights will also include talks from television landscape architect Costa Georgiadis and environmental educator Millie Ross, free comedy shows, the gardeners’ market and the grand parade.

Liam Downes of Black Cat Truffles will also be sharing his paddock-to-plate philosophy using local produce.

The Robert Clark Conservatory is celebrating 30 years, and inside it will be more than 600 begonias in a romantic display alongside lavender and greenery.

City of Ballarat curator of gardens and nursery Donna Thomas said the team works on the display for most of the year.

“We work on the begonias for 10 months of the year so there’s only two months where we’re not actively working on them,” she said.

“We grow them … and at the moment we are actually holding them back so [we are] removing all their flowers.

“It means when we do allow them to go, their biggest and best blooms will be on display.”

Away from the Botanical Gardens, Wadawurrung artist Jenna Oldaker has designed large begonia letters, which will be on display in Sturt Street.

Each letter’s artwork represents a native plant of the area.

“This year my idea was to create not only what will be a beautiful artwork but also to hopefully include an educational element to it as well,” Ms Oldaker said.

“A lot of natives you may have seen before but may have not known what they were.”

The Ballarat Begonia Festival will be on the Labour Day long weekend, Saturday 8 March to Monday 10 March.

The full program can be found on the Ballarat Begonia Festival website.