Tis the season for a make-over of the Victoria Street Gardens

The magnificent Victoria Street gardens will soon receive their seasonal make-over with the planting of the summer and autumn display. 

The City of Ballarat’s City Entrances team will plant 25 garden beds filled with 7,000 pastel-coloured annual plants along the 2.4km stretch between Bakery Hill and Fussell Street in the next few weeks. 

This season’s plants will feature petunias, marigolds, osteospermum, salvias, geraniums, coreopsis, pyrethrum, cineraria, begonias, dalhias, erigeron and alternanthera. 

The garden beds will first be prepared with fertiliser and soil conditioner. The annuals will then be planted in the second week of December and are expected to be in full bloom in late January. 

The renowned themed garden bed on the corner of Victoria Street and Princes Street South that delights passersby with its seasonal special event themes will soon also receive a Christmas display to celebrate the festive season. 

However, the exact details of the festive garden bed are being kept under wraps, until the garden bed is unveiled by City Entrances horticulturalist Peter Blood in early December.  

City of Ballarat Mayor, Cr Des Hudson said the Victoria Street gardens provide a warm, colourful welcome for many visitors and returning residents to our city. 

“The Victoria Street gardens, just like all of our spectacular gardens across Ballarat, are an incredible credit to our dedicated Parks and Gardens team,” he said. 

“Our vibrant gardens bring people joy and make many people smile each and every day. 

“I look forward to seeing the Victoria Street gardens bloom over the summer months and I eagerly await the unveiling of this year’s Christmas-themed garden bed.” 

The grand Victoria Street entrance features mostly oaks, elms and maples that were planted to replace blue gums in the early 20th Century. The only native trees remaining are three flowering gums, one original blue gum and several London plane trees. 

The entrance also showcases about 2,500 roses in a variety of bright colours. 

The winter and spring display of annual plants, which germinate, grow, flower and die in one season, will be turned into compost. 

The City Entrances team manages six Ballarat entrances, including Gillies Street, Howitt Street, Creswick Road, Albert Street, Sturt Street and Victoria Street as well as the city’s many grass and vegetated roundabouts. 

The team’s work aligns with the City of Ballarat’s Council Plan 2021-2025 goal - ‘A city the conserves and enhances our natural and built assets’.