"I read back on this, and I thought, 'How interesting that was the career path I took'. As a kid, I was always outside in the garden, I was mowing the lawns for Mum and Dad, always wanting to be out doing that sort of work," Ms Walker said.

Now Ms Walker has been appointed Floriade head gardener, tasked with steering the popular annual flower show through another year of COVID-19 uncertainty.

"It's a different sort of job to step up into. Big shoes to fill, because someone's been in it for so long. The expectations out there, for the public [are big]," she said.

Enough bulbs have been ordered to fill the usual beds across Commonwealth Park, but a decision has not been made on Floriade's format this year.

If the large-format event cannot go ahead, Floriade will continue in the suburbs with smaller beds dotted around the city. A decision will be made later this year.

It's just another change in the event's long history, which Ms Walker has seen growing up in Canberra and then first working as an apprentice at Floriade.

"We'd come across into Floriade [on school excursions] - you'd watch it just grow every year. It was something that was started small in the early '90s, it got bigger. I saw that development over that time," she said.

But that didn't stop the nerves Ms Walker felt taking on the job from Andrew Forster, who had been at the helm since 1997.

"I was a bit nervous at first. Because I thought, 'Wow, this is really big. This is really huge to sort of fill in for'. But I'm excited to fill in for it and try something different and step up new ways of how we can do things in here as well," Ms Walker said.

Mr Forster had become the acting north side operations manager for City Services, an ACT government spokeswoman said.

"Instead of tending to bulbs and annuals he is now overseeing horticultural maintenance and cleaning services across the Belconnen and Gungahlin regions. Andrew felt it was time for a change and to broaden his horizons with his team at City Presentation," she said.

Ms Walker said Mr Forster had been a good mentor as she took on the role.

"He gives good advice. He's been mentoring me through a lot of it and helping me out with things. He's a wealth of knowledge because he has done it for so long. I rack his brains and it's easy to call on him and get a bit of information when I need it," she said.

But even the best advice cannot control Canberra's weather, a major Floriade factor no head gardener can shape.

"For me, too much rain is too much," Ms Walker said.

"You want a nice spring lead up into the event. But you need good weather patterns throughout the whole time; you want to have the right temperatures leading up through our autumn season, into winter and then into the spring growing season so it's pretty much perfect to go.

"You can't guarantee that every year, because every year in the ACT is different."

Ms Walker said her time working as an apprentice at Floriade meant she knew she could turn to the new apprentices to find out what the latest horticultural practices were.

"What I learnt 18 years ago is different to what they learn today. Everything's always changing out there ... so I might be doing something which is completely different to what they do today," she said.

"I'm really involved in hearing what they want to tell me about the new practices that they're studying."