An extravaganza that (inexplicably) attracts such flocks (and I use that word advisedly) of patrons (2018's floral orgy attracted 480,540 folk) could do so much GOOD in the world if only it had a heart, if it evangelised, if it got angry, if it took sides.

But it never does, and next Floriade's just-announced theme of World In Bloom continues Floriade's vanilla tradition of passionless, stand-for-nothing themes.

The wider nation, the wider world both bristle with urgent causes great and small that cry out for some promotion, some thought-propagating discussion. Why not, I seethe, a Global Warming Floriade that speaks up florally about our planet's plight, its beds evangelising against climate change deniers (I see a satirical portrait of Tony Abbott made from the ugliest possible tulips), against Satanic coal.

This Global Warming Floriade might stick up for the endangered polar bears (I see an enormous, perfumed floral polar bear, made from a million white-flowered hyacinths, standing atop a shrinking iceberg made from a billion white-flowered poppies), and for those low lying nations soon to be engulfed by rising seas (I see replicas of the Maldive Islands made of flat beds of low-growing English daisies).

Or what of, say, a MeToo Floriade that pipes up horticulturally for the brave women of the world fighting back against male lechery. Here (although I will keep this unseemly thought to myself lest it offend some readers) I imagine menacing beds of those flowering annuals, especially those pornographic tulips, which have an unfortunately phallic appearance.

Couldn't we have a Floriade devoted entirely to speaking out horticulturally for, say, the homeless, for refugees, for political prisoners, a Floriade that actually SAYS SOMETHING about our real world, our times, our species' struggles?

Meanwhile, what an opportunity we have missed out on for 2019 by not making Floriade's theme the deploring of, the mocking of Donald Trump!

Present, blandly themed Floriades never attract any worldwide interest but with Trump the best-known and (outside his own core of deplorables) the most mocked and despised figure on earth our satirical Donald Trump Floriade would have enthralled the watching world. Next year, with the monster perhaps flushed by impeachment out of the limelight and the presidency it will be too late.

And what fun creative artists would have had with floral depictions of Trump? His fake tan is a shade of glowing tangerine one sees in the flowers of the very worst of pansies (much beloved by Floriade's annual planters).

His ludicrous hair varies in colour from day to day according to what he has painted it with, but in spite of it sometimes being what Hmm Daily magazine calls a shade of "rich, heavy cinnamon" it is usually a variation on the hues of gold and yellow we see in Floriade's massed daffodils.

In fact Floriade is already, always Trump-like in its own way. It is, in its horticultural vulgarity, suggestive of the interior décor vulgarity of Trump's famous Manhattan apartment mansion, that riot of gold and gilt and glitter. If he ever commissions the garden of his (grotesque) dreams it will look very like Floriade.

Gosh! Caramba! Shiver me timbers! I have a sudden brainwave I offer, with no expectation of reward (the warm inner glow that comes from serving my beloved city will be enough) to the chief minister and his Floriade promoters.

Why not, quietly dropping 2019's just-announced name/theme (it is so nondescript everyone will soon forget it), instead call 2019's extravaganza Donald Trump's Dream Garden? The infectiously newsy name will sweep the world and set up Canberra-centred hankerings in the bosoms of international tourists.

And, wondrously, absolutely nothing extra over and above the gaudy 2019 plantings already planned will need to be done! Not an extra dollar will need to be spent to have Floriade look, as it always manages to without even trying, the gaudy garden of the dreams of the tangerine-complexioned 45th president of the United States.