The Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show 2024

I recently went along to The International Flower and Garden Show, the largest event of its type in the Southern Hemisphere. It is held each year at the Royal Exhibition Building and Carlton Gardens in Melbourne, Australia. This wonderful building was built in 1879 – 1880 for the purpose of holding exhibitions, which were the popular “trend” between 1851 and 1915, right across the world.

This iconic building became the site of the first Parliament of Australia on 9th of May, 1901, until the government moved to the newly formed Australian Capital Territory (the ACT), in 1927. Click here and here if you would like to read our earlier posts about this wonderful building.

This beautiful World Heritage-listed treasure sits in the middle of the 26 hectares of the Carlton Gardens in which the Garden Show was set. The whole area was covered in displays of garden designs, sculptures, and stalls where people could buy plants, bulbs and all sorts of gardening and landscaping equipment. There was so much to see!

The detail and amount of work that goes into building numerous garden designs for the five days of the show is just incredible! ¹

Over only a few days, landscapers bring in rocks, plants, soil and construction materials of all sorts. A myriad of workers then scurry about like ants to build walls, decks and water features and place hundreds of plants to create private oases of peace and calm.

Here is a one minute slideshow of some of my photos of these spaces, so you can see what I mean:

Aren’t they just amazing! The designs are judged and awards presented in various categories, such as the Most Sustainable or Small Urban Garden etc.

We came across the presenters of the popular lifestyle programme here in Australia, called Better Homes and Gardens, who were filming with the winners of Best in Show:

Down another pathway there was a wonderful display of garden sculptures, made in metal, mosaics, and ceramics. Here is a 1 minute slideshow of my photos:

It was lovely to see a number of primary school children visiting the show, with workshops being held where they could get involved in planting and learning about growing vegetables and seedlings.

Hopefully this will foster a love of gardening and growing food in the younger generation!

Along one of the paths there was a large display of hanging baskets made by school children:

Inside the Royal Exhibition Building itself there were wonderful displays of floristry and art. Again, an incredible amount of effort by students and professionals alike goes into creating these wonderful displays.

Here are some of my photos (1 minute):

With well over 100,000 people expected to visit over the five days, it shows that people have an interest in building their own “happy place” - a space to relax, be peaceful and appreciate nature, whether it is a big or small garden, or just a balcony!

The International Flower and Garden Show provides plenty of inspiration to do it!

Footnote

1. There was a programme recently shown on Channel 9 in Australia called The Making of the International Flower and Garden Show. If you are interested and have access to the catch up channel 9NOW, it is well worth it to see the amount of work that goes into making this event happen. (1 hour duration).