Garden guru begonia bound

THE city is about to blossom with one of its biggest draws as the Begonia Festival returns this Labour Day long weekend in celebration of its seventieth anniversary.

As part of this year’s event, gardening and culture festival will begin this Friday and run for 10 days until Sunday, 20 March.

A series of floral attractions and live performances will be held across the CBD and the Botanical Gardens, including the traditional 700-begonia display housed at the Robert Clark Conservatory.

The Gardens curator, Peter Marquand, said that between repairing recent storm damages and ushering in a milestone celebration, the team has their work cut out for them.

“Seventy years is certainly significant, and one of the important things that we see is that people have been coming to see the begonias since the early 1900s so it really ties in with that history.

“I’ve done about 17 of these festivals myself, and every year it’s different. It’s evolved and changed over its lifespan and hasn’t remained static.”

This year’s new additions include a Food Truck Friday event set for Alfred Deakin Place, the transformation of CBD laneways into the Begonia Byway, and Weed Foraging walks at Sovereign Hill.

Mr Marquand said the festival will also provide people with a sneak peek at the Botanical Gardens new fernery building, a recreation of the site’s earlier incarnation.

“It’s an opportunity for people to have a look at that and appreciate that rebuilding before we get plants into it and landscaping around it,” he said.

As part of events on the festival’s main stage in the gardens, presentations will be given by TV gardener and landscaper Jamie Durie, MasterChef contestants (and local tostie tzar) Tim Bone and Simon Toohey, landscaper Dave Franklin.

During his talk, Durie said he hopes to inspire people to be more creative in how they cultivate their outdoor rooms.

“Gardening is one of the largest pastimes in history. We tend to live our lives both indoor and out, and maintaining that connection is so important,” he said.

“My talks will be about how to blend nature with architecture and how to compartmentalise your backyard to improve the way you live both in your house and your garden.

Durie’s first presentation will be on Saturday, 12 March with a focus on gardening creativity, and the following day’s talk will prioritise the relationship between food and outdoor decoration.

With last year’s event stretched across several weeks, City of Ballarat mayor Cr Daniel Moloney said he’s interested to see how the new 10-day format is received.

“Our focus is still on the three-day long weekend with an extended traditional week, but I think the pandemic has given us a willingness and freedom now to try things differently than in the past,” he said.

“This format hasn’t been done before, and if we can still approach this differently even after 70 years, maybe this is the next horizon for Begonia fest. Who knows?”

With an average attendance of over 60,000, the City of Ballarat estimates the festival adds $3.445 million to the local economy.