A Huge Day of Plants

This is going to be a big blog post, because this was a big day! Floriade, the National Arboretum, and the National Botanic Gardens. All plants, all day. So if plants aren't your thing, you might want to skip this post.

OK, this isn't a plant:

It is the National Carillon. (Everything in Canberra is "The National" Something-or-Other). 50 metres tall, home to a bunch of bronze bells, it was a gift to Canberra from the British Government on Canberra's 50th birthday.

We parked by the carillon and walked along R.G.Menzies Walk around Lake Burley Griffin to Floriade. Look who we met on the way:

Sir Robert himself, from back in the days when Australia could keep a Prime Minister for longer than five minutes. (Hat is not part of the sculpture.) In the background, the National Library and the High Court.

Eventually we reached Floriade:

This is the first time I have been able to attend this festival of flowers. Somehow I had imagined that it was a Canberra-wide thing, with floral displays all through the city. But in fact it is one 4-hectare site, which makes it easier to see all at once. As you can see from the sign, this year had a "Pop Culture" theme. Personally I don't think it really worked. Can you tell what the design of the garden bed in front of the sign is? Each garden bed was planted to illustrate some aspect of pop culture. But as most of the beds are viewed from human height, it is impossible to make out the design. You can see that there are odd blotches of colour, but you would have to be able to view them from above to see the design. Looking at the designs on the Floriade website, I think that the garden bed above is Marilyn Monroe's face. Looking at the garden bed, it just looks like a mess.

Other beds could just be enjoyed as swathes of flowers:

If you love tulips, there were plenty to enjoy:

But there were also daisies and pansies and other flowers to add to the depth of colour in the beds.

That's probably enough Floriade pictures. I took heaps, but you don't need to see them all to get the idea, I'm sure.

Walking back to the car I remembered to photograph this view:

Parliament House behind old Parliament House.

The path beside the lake is studded with memorials of one kind or another. This one struck me as a little strange:

It is a memorial to the Australians who died in the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004. What I find odd (and a little tasteless) about it is that nowhere does it mention the fact that about 230,000 people died in that disaster. It only marks the deaths of 26 Australians.

Chapter Two.

Next stop, the National Arboretum.

This is the inside of the visitors' centre. The roof is designed to resemble the leaves of a fan palm. From this building there are panoramic views of the arboretum and to the mountains which surround Canberra. We joined an introductory talk, conducted each hour by volunteer guides, which was very informative.

Kids (and others) flying kites they made in a school holiday program:

The arboretum consists of forests of 100 trees, of about 100 different species of rare, threatened or iconic trees from around the world. Some are still to be planted, and most of the ones which have been planted are still quite small:

 It would be great to be able to return every 5 or 10 years to watch these forests develop.

The whole site covers about 250 hectares (600 or so acres) which was previously a pine plantation destroyed by bushfires in 2003. Here you can see part of the arboretum between remaining sections of the pine plantation:

At this time of year, many of the deciduous species are only just leafing out, so they are hard to see in these photos. And unfortunately we had just missed the cherry blossom!

View to the visitors' centre with Black Mountain on the far right:

Just imagine what it will all look like in seasons and years to come.

The visitors' centre also hosts a bonsai collection:

And a display garden of plants suitable for Canberra gardens:

Seeing those redbuds in full flower made me wonder what mine is doing at home. The flowers were almost opening when I last looked at it.

Trying out the panorama setting on my new camera:

Chapter Three.

After such a big day we only explored part of the Australian National Botanic Gardens. The visitors' centre has an exhibition of artworks by Dirk Lejeune that I really liked. His pieces are made of timber, bark, and crosscut branches:

Outside the visitors' centre we met this fellow as we were sitting eating icecreams:

He (or she) is an eastern water dragon. He ran over to gobble up any crumbs we dropped.

On dry days (like today) the rainforest gully is sprayed with a fine mist:

which kids love to play in!

The gardens were lovely, but I was so exhausted I took almost no photos. This sign woke me up a bit though:

After that it was time to head back to the motel for a bit of a rest before we ventured out again for dinner at an Indian restaurant we had spotted nearby, Bombay Spice House. The food was excellent.

Well done if you made it to the end of this marathon post. Thanks for sticking with me!