Begonia Eyeball Fest in Ballarat

Yesterday the Bear and I enjoyed the Labour day public holiday by taking a little solo jaunt into the country sans offspring to see the Ballarat Begonia festival at the Ballarat Botanical Gardens.

An hour in the car means an hour of crochet...

If you hate or are otherwise visually allergic to begonias, then look away now. This is not the blog post for you! 

I just realised that if someone didn't like begonias, they'd call them 'Be Gone-iyas' 😂🎤

We last visited the Ballarat Begonia Festival in 2017. We were fresh faced younguns' dragging the kiddos along for the trip. This time we could explore and take our time without the lack of floral appreciation from non-adult participants.

The main Begonia display is in the Robert Clark Conservatory. 

The display was a luscious mix of flowering tuberous begonias, leafy non-tuberous begonias, ferns and other leafy tropical plants.

The conservatory itself is just one big glasshouse so they make the most of the begonia display with one long pathway that snakes up the left hand side of the glasshouse, then bends and comes back down the otherside. I couldn't take a photograph to adequately show this as there were squillions of people everywhere.  If I come down with the 'spicy cough' this week, I'll know where I caught it from!

There was such a vast array of begonia types. Big blousy camellia type flowers in reds, whites, yellows and pinks. Flowers with wiggly edges, flowers with serrated edges. Look, I know there are proper sciencey horticultural names for these things. I spent a few years at Hort school learning them, but I can't remember them all right now?

I adored the big froufy hanging baskets. Froufy is a totes legit gardening word. I'm sure I've heard Monty Don use it once maybe...

I really love the huge variety of tuberous begonias which are the plants with big showy flowers and the non-tuberous begonias which have much smaller flowers or/ and much showier leaves.

This gorgeous cut leaf begonia looked so pretty. A non-tuberous variety. You can see a list of all the non-tuberous varieties displayed here. 

And here's an example of a tuberous begonia. I think this one was called 'Bridal Cascade'.

You can see the collection of tuberous begonias here.

A nice little break from all the begonia-ness was a soft Dichondra wall. I'm sure there was a sign which said 'Do not touch the display'. I touched it. Twice. But very gently. So soft...

The Bear is such a good sport. He puts up with all our couples selfies. I think he has nice smiley eyes.

I actually really wanted to take this photo as the last time we visited the Begonia festival was exactly 5 years and 1 day ago when we looked fresh and 5 years younger. Although Bear did say I made a point of using all of the filters back then...

To straighten hair or not to straighten hair? That is the question....

I really adored the hanging baskets. The flowers cascade down as if to provide perfect close up photo opportunities. Although for me they look like colourful bungy jumpers.

Like this bungy jumper. I want this to be my new screen saver. 

Alright I'm sure you're over it now. So that's enough of the begonias...

Ok, maybe just one more. Because pink leaves are glorious...

No really, just, enough... enough now!

By the time I finally finished taking eleventy hundred photos in the conservatory I walked out to find poor Bear patiently waiting for me. He knows that when I'm surrounded by floral wonder then the rest of the world can go hang.

There used to be a large, old, dilapidated shade house in the middle of the gardens which has been replaced by this splendid and over the top thing. Still under construction it has spindles and a weather vane and all of the cheap ass Kmart wooden shaped things all over it and I love it.

So did Bear.

It's not often you find such an awesome larkspur filled bed...

This art installation called 'Fabric Forest' was supposed to represent fast fashion or cheap over production or something something. I thought it looked like a fantastical scrappy Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse mythology.

The Begonia Festival has so many activities for kids. Dozens of kids and parents were sitting together at tables and on the grass making beautiful craft mobiles.

Before we left I had to visit some of my favourites at Prime Ministers Avenue.

"I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not." Love you Julia 💗

Ah Paul. So many insults. What a cunning linguist!  I also stopped by the bust of Hawkey (former Prime Minister Bob Hawke) to pay tribute and was moved to see a few people had left flowers around his bust. I forgot to take a photo of it but it was quite lovely.

 On the way out (kind of but not really), I stopped at a number of plant stalls. There were lots of tempting succulents and perennials but I opted for a $10 potted tuberous begonia. It was so pretty I couldn't walk away without adding this one to my little collection.

I really tried to hold back on posting every single photo of every single begonia as that would be way too much but their colours and varieties were so glorious! I hope you enjoyed coming along on our little day trip. Thanks for stopping by!

Louise

Red Haired Amazona