Established in 1953, the Ballarat Begonia Festival is an innovative garden-based horticultural event that
showcases the city’s natural assets, including its unique collection of begonias.

The festival was inspired by Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival. 

For 10 months of the year, the City of Ballarat’s horticultural team grow and nurture thousands of begonias in over 500 varieties.

This impressive collection is the rarest in the southern hemisphere.

The 2022 Ballarat Begonia Festival will be held from the March long weekend in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens and CBD.

The full festival program is available online now at ballaratbegoniafestival.com

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 1953: The first Begonia Festival opens.   

1954: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II visits the festival.   

1953-1993: The Ballarat Begonia Festival hosts the Queen of Begonias competition. A judging panel would select one woman to become the annual Queen of Begonias. Her role was to promote the festival and appear in the parade.   

1960: The ‘new’ begonia glasshouse in the Ballarat Botanical Gardens was opened and the floral clock was installed. It was the largest electrically-motorised floral clock in the world at the time.  

1964: The floral carpet was the first large-scale, live-flower floral carpet, measuring 30 feet by 21 feet and featuring over 700,000 specially-grown blooms.  

1972: The festival introduces Princesses of Begonias (runners-up).  

1973: The annual parade moves to Lake Wendouree.   

1993: The festival crowns its last Queen of Begonias.   

1995: The newly-opened Robert Clark Conservatory becomes a festival focal point.   

1999: The festival celebrates 100 years of begonias being present in Ballarat.                                                    

2012: The festival’s 60th year celebrations.  

2015:  The world’s largest outdoor LEGO flower, made by Ryan McNaught (The Brickman), was unveiled at the festival.                                                     

2022: The festival’s 70th year celebrations.