Located just across the road from Lake Wendouree, the Ballarat Botanical Gardens is 40 hectares of picturesque flower beds, shrubbery and mature trees. Perhaps best known for hosting the annual Begonia Festival, it also houses an impressive collection of 52 nationally significant trees, as well as two collections of begonias spanning hundreds of varieties.
In 1995, it became home to the Robert Clark Conservatory, named after the co-founder of the Courier newspaper, which was founded in Ballarat in 1867. While it's the third conservatory in the gardens, it's the first and only one to allow visitors to wander inside among the floral displays. It's open all year round, and the display changes seasonally. Expect hydrangeas, fuchsias and pelargoniums in the summer, spring-flowering bulbs in the spring and cyclamens, cinerarias and primulas in the winter.
Just a short walk from the conservatory, you'll find Prime Ministers Avenue. There are presently 29 bronze portraits of former prime ministers on display, and the collection currently spans from our nation's first prime minister, Edmund Barton, to Malcolm Turnbull. For those interested in statues of the non-political variety, there are also 12 marble statues scattered throughout the gardens.
