News Alert |

Ballarat’s Robert Clarke Conservatory is bursting with colour as the City’s Parks and Gardens Team prepare to unveil the 2020 Begonia Display, the Jewel in the Crown of the City’s Begonia Festival (March 7-9). 

The reveal of the famous Begonia Display is a much-anticipated event and this year’s theme will not disappoint the tens of thousands of visitors who come to Ballarat each year to witness the incredible collection. 

Peter Marquand, Curator Parks and Nursery, says this year’s design is one of his favourites with long straight lines of Begonias creating massive banks of colour with hanging baskets a central part of the display. 

The installation takes around two weeks, with each of the delicate 600 Begonia plants staked with wire, colour matched and moved around until the design is just right and rea

Ballarat’s Begonias were originally imported from Blackmore and Langdon in the UK with some of the tuberous varieties traced back to the early 1900s. Most of the Tuberous Begonia plants have a 5-6-year lifespan, but Council staff ensure the collection is carried on, propagating from the parent stock and growing in the glass house nursery at the Botanical Gardens. 

Ballarat still has 149 of the Blackmore and Langdon Begonias in its collection, including 80 no longer available from the British supplier.  

The Begonia Display is expected to remain in the Conservatory until mid-late April. 

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

  For a full program of Ballarat Begonia Festival events click here