More Floriade pictures

The main reason for my trip south was to visit the Floriade so I really cannot let this blog go by without adding another couple of pictures! I will not be returning to it as I had hoped - when you are part of a larger party of people you have to fit in with their desires rather than insist on following your own. (sob)
Living in the sub tropics, as I do, I see very few of these temperate zone flowers except in the supermarkets - the southern nurseries make money from the plants that everyone kills off in the wrong growing zones! The tulips in the Floriade displays were gorgeous. There were lots of people with SLR digital cameras crouching down and taking macro shots of them! The colours were as varied as the arrangement of the petals. I had not realised there were so many different sorts of tulips. Likewise the daffodils, there were the usual pale yellow with the darker yellow trumpet and every other combination of yellows and oranges and whites that I could possibly imagine. There were individual heads on a stalk and multiple heads, there were doubles and singles and fluffed trumpets and short trumpets. It was fascinating just looking for different ones!
Yesterday I wrote about how the flowers were looking as if they were being viewed too early.
Well here is a photo I took which is how the gardens look from eye level. I did find that if I got down to the height of a six year old that the gardens looked absolutely amazing. The difference was worth the bending down!
How it was possible to grow all these plants and produce them as they are just opening on display in the Centenary Gardens I don't know. There must be some enormous green houses located somewhere! When the Floriade is over the plants will all be returned to where ever it is they came from to be nurtured and re-potted (every plant is in a pot under mulch) and brought out and put in a new arrangement next year.
Being an energetic sort of dude, I wandered away and found the the display went even further - right down to the lake and half way around it. As the afternoon was wearing on there were a few more people wandering around but I was amazed just how few people there were admiring the displays. One of the volunteers who was manning one of the gates told me that the weekends were so busy that people could hardly move for the crowds.
I hope we can take another look at the displays before we leave this area of NSW.
AJ