Melbourne Cont. - Flower Show

We went to our second attraction for this visit to Melbourne, the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show held at the Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens.

Now you have to understand that we have a background of 24 years of Floriade, so we were expecting big things from this major event in this big city.

Inside the hall were lots of individual displays which appeared to either be from 'schools' or professional flower floggers. Some nice flowers though and some very imaginative displays, especially the tree made out of orchids - you had to look twice and then closely to see that it wasn't a actual tree with its leaves all aglow with autumn gold.

Outside we were looking for the show gardens but had to wade through street after street of shops first. When we did find them, all of about half a dozen, they were a bit ordinary.

Highlight of the day (and this shows how unimpressive the show was itself) was a huge Scotsman about ten foot tall and a huge dog that went about entertaining the crowd. The dog would lay down at his master's feet and when the crowd least expected it, the dog would let loose a stream of water all over some poor sod's leg. All part of the act as was the dog's antics when the bagpipes got some wind up their tubes.

Frankly, we were both a bit disappointed with the lack of actual flower and garden displays, they had a bunch (sorry) but I wouldn't say that it was much better than Floriade. What you came away with was an overwhelming sense of product from the zillion vendors and not much of an inspiration garden-wise.

Don't forget that the snaps are all available from the Melbourne panel on the right-------->

Snap of the day: