Eleven dead trees in two years were part of the reason the National Capital Authority wanted to change the way the city's most popular tourist event was run.
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The NCA's chief executive Malcolm Snow has defended his agency against claims it is anti-Floriade and said the event must stop killing trees in Commonwealth Park if it wants to stay.
The authority has asked Floriade organisers to change the way the event is put together so parts of Commonwealth Park were not shut down by construction work for eight months a year.
On Thursday NCA staff told Parliament's national capital and external territories committee the authority had been forced to turn away other events throughout the year because Floriade organisers spent so much time constructing the event.
The committee heard setting up Floriade came at the cost of inadvertently killing 11 established trees in the park in the past two years because soil had been compacted.
Mr Snow said Commonwealth Park was "not a suburban park" and its heritage value could not be disregarded.
He said next year's Floriade would not be smaller in the terms of the size of the event, as some people feared, but direct plantings in the ground in some areas would be smaller.
In return the authority had offered other areas to the event's organisers for greater use.
"We're being very responsive to event planning needs," Mr Snow said.
"We recognise the importance of the event to the city.
"We want this event to stay [in Commonwealth Park].
"The ACT Government appears to be saying it is happy to work in these parameters."
Floriade attracted almost half a million visitors this year and there has been talk in the community of possible alternate venues in future years, such as Glebe Park.
There have also been discussions about a "multi-site" Floriade but no plans about this were settled.
Designers of the MCG's portable cricket pitch technology were part of the plan to redesign the festival in future years, which was expected to allow the use of more drop-in flower beds.
The NCA, which controlled the national land where Floriade had been hosted for almost three decades, had granted the ACT Government use of the park for the event in 2016 to see how the new arrangements worked.
A rolling program of works for Floriade begins in March each year with garden beds laid out, grass killed and the soil removed to make way for temporary garden beds, according to an NCA spokeswoman.
From this point Commonwealth Park was managed as a construction site until the closing of Floriade each year.
About half a dozen complaints were received by the NCA about the damage caused to the park by Floriade, the hearing was told.
After the hearing the NCA spokeswoman said it was not the complaints which prompted moves to change the layout of the flower event but the death of the trees.
"This request was a result of growing concern regarding the adverse impact the event has on the park, with many mature trees of significant heritage values being killed and subsequently removed each year as a result of the event," the spokeswoman said.
"The NCA has asked the ACT Government to reconsider the event's configuration in a more innovative way, to ensure the park can be utilised by a number of events and event organisers to be enjoyed as a public park by the community and visitors alike."
