News Alert |

The countdown is on to the 2020 Ballarat Begonia Festival, with the City of Ballarat Parks and Gardens team now preparing the Ballarat Botanical Gardens and Robert Clark Conservatory for the thousands of expected visitors over the long weekend (March 7-9).

The Conservatory has been closed to allow Parks and Gardens staff to start the long process of installing the much-awaited 2020 Begonia Display.

The Ballarat Botanical Gardens will be closed from Saturday, February 29 through to Saturday, 7 March to allow for the wider festival bump-in.

The annual closures are necessary for safety reasons and to allow staff adequate time to set-up the Festival footprint as well as transport and install the Begonias from the nursery into the Conservatory.

With an extensive program of events on the 2020 Begonia Festival Program, there will be a lot of activity in the Gardens in the coming week, with marquees, stages and other infrastructure being brought into the space requiring forklifts and other heavy equipment.

2020 marks the 68th Ballarat Begonia Festival and the 163rd anniversary of Ballarat’s historic Botanical Gardens.