Cockington Green Gardens is ready to kick off as one of Floriade’s homes away from home this Saturday, as the much-anticipated reimagined event kicks off.
The family favourite is just one of over 130 Canberra sites used to create a Tulip Trail across the Territory and will be home to some of its limited live events.
Cockington Green Gardens general manager Mark Sarah said the venue jumped at the chance to be part of Floriade: Reimagined this year.
“To see Floriade to disappear off people’s front of mind is something I didn’t want to happen, and the opportunity was there, and we took it with both hands,” he said.
“To be honest it was at a time when we were wondering how business was going to go, it was really refreshing to actually be working in corporation with Events ACT. It gave us something to do.
“I know Canberrans love Floriade and they own it and for a period of time and here on into the future we are going to be part of that.”
Floriade fans can attend photography workshops and snap eye-catching garden beds and Waverly Doll Houses at the venue, or kick-back at a Sunday session in the September sun.
The venue could also be one of the 130 sites sporting a gnome in the city-wide gnome hunt set to launch this Saturday.
Residents can download a set of easy, medium or hard clues to find the colourful garden creatures scattered across Canberra.
Floriade: Reimagined Executive Producer Vickii Cotter said with over 90 community groups involved in making the event happen, the planning process had been a lot of fun.
“I think it has been a lot of fun where we have been able to involve the community,” she said.
“We normally have a lot of people involved in Floriade when we produce it in a normal year, but in a reimagined year we have been able to include all of Canberra.”
A visit to Cockington Green Gardens will show visitors over 14,000 flowering bulbs at the location, including one garden bed boasting more than 1,000 bulbs.
Guests are also encouraged to jump aboard the favourite mini steam train, for the best views in the house.
The venue will be allowing up to 500 visitors adhering to COVID safe measures at one time, working through a new booking system online.
Mr Sarah said while this was a fraction of what a normally busy period would look like, the company was just happy to be welcoming back the public.
“The fires gave us a terrible time at a very busy time of the year and then COVID came in and we closed,” he said.
“We are comfortable with about 500 people here and we are seeing it as a positive to be up and running again.”
