The city of Orange in New South Wales has a lovely formal Victorian-era park, Cook Park.
In 1934 a conservatory was built in the park specifically for showing off begonias. The Blowes Conservatory (named after the mayor of the day, who pushed for its construction) still showcases begonias, so we went along for a look.
Cook Park was “proclaimed as a park” in 1873, and was planted out with many exotic trees from all around the world. These trees are now around 150 years old, making the park a leafy, shady place.
Begonias have been bred into a huge range of varieties, and the range on display here is amazing! They are the most beautiful flowers – large, soft, colourful, and subtly toned. Walking into the conservatorium is actually a shock as the variety is overwhelming.
I didn’t make any notes on the varieties of begonias in the conservatory, but you don’t really need to know that – you can just admire the beautiful colours and forms of these amazing flowers:
Oops! That last one was a rose: but it’s a beautiful flower too, so I took its photo. Roses are tougher than the begonias, so they are outdoors in the park’s sunken garden.
The aviary
The park also has an aviary, which contains some sulphur-crested cockatoos that for various reasons can’t live in the wild. I’ve been told that the cockatoo provide a steady supply of patients to the local hospital’s emergency department as people keep sticking their fingers through the cage mesh and the cockatoos keep lacerating them with their beaks, sometimes quite severely. There are warning signs.
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