Visitors to the opening day of Floriade were queuing at the gates by 9am hoping to get a glimpse of what the popular flower festival had in store in 2016.
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But one man had arrived four hours prior, as he had done for the past 18 years, to dart around the grounds and have the gardens primped, preened and primed, ready to be showcased.
Head gardener Andrew Forster is celebrating his 19th year in the job, while the festival celebrates 29. On the verge of Floriade's third decade, organisers have taken Canberra's biggest celebration of spring back to basics.
Floriade spokeswoman Jasmine De Martin said the tagline for this year's event was 'life in bloom', which didn't pinpoint a specific theme but instead aimed to focus purely on the flowers.
"The feedback we've had in previous years is that people love Floriade, and they're really coming back for the flowers," Ms De Martin said.
With that in mind, the team had focused on producing a festival steeped in all things gardening, including innovative design, landscape architecture and the incorporation of gardening tips.
Saturday morning's sunshine and blue skies brought out Ramanathan Ganabathy and his wife and 10-year-old daughter. The family was one of the first to see what this year's festival had to offer. It was their second year experiencing the joys of Floriade, having emigrated from India in early 2015.
Mr Ganabathy said compared to last year's event, it was a much more lively experience.
"What we all like was when we went on the ferris wheel," he said. "It's more than the flowers, there are patterns, a rainbow, all the shapes. They were things we only saw from up above."
For his daughter Sowmya, who is in year 5, Floriade provided the ideal opportunity to work on her skills as a painter.
Under the tuition of Lavender Art Studios' Greg Devenny-Mackay, Sowmya put paintbrush to paper to capture the colours and feeling of Floriade.
It was a special and uniquely Canberran experience for Sowmya, her father said. "She loved it," he said. "It's very different from sitting in a class and looking at the specimen, versus sitting under the sun with friends and people bustling around."
Floriade runs for 30 days. Visit floriadeaustralia.com for details.
