A million flowers were up for grabs at Floriade's 'Great Big Bulb Dig' on Monday marking an overcast end to its best attended event since 2020.
This year's theme - Art in Bloom - and regional advertising helped attract about 470,000 visitors, executive branch manager at Events ACT Ross Triffit said.
More than 430,000 people had attended Floriade in 2023.
"It's the highest attendance we've had since COVID. This year we were targeting around 450,000. After a two-year break during [the pandemic], it [took] some time for an event of this scale to build momentum," he said.
Any flowers still remaining in garden beds will be cut and delivered to hospitals and people in respite care in the ACT while the profits from selling "bulb dig bags" will be donated to Roundabout Canberra and the Indigenous Marathon Foundation.
The bulb dig raised about $47,000 in 2023.
"Inevitably, there are some flowers left over. They get turned into organic mulch, which is then utilised in gardens throughout Canberra and sometimes again in Floriade the following year," Mr Triffit said.
'Fake spring' not a real thing
The weather forecast for a "showery" week came true late on Monday afternoon with a spell of heavy rain. Showers and thunderstorms are expected on most days.
"There's a risk of a thunderstorm that's associated with a fairly significant trough and cold front that's going to be crossing the region on Friday," senior forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology Jake Phillips said.
Intermittent showers will occur throughout the week until the wettest conditions on Friday where there could be 20mm of rain and 30kmh northwesterly winds.
"There's going to be a lot of cloud around so we won't see a lot of variation in temperature, the minimums are not going to be particularly cold," Mr Phillips said.
Wednesday is expected to be the coolest day this week with seven degrees predicted for the morning.
There will be a shift in the weather on the weekend when the sky could clear up and be fairly sunny, the forecaster said.
He also said the popular phrase this time of year known to locals as "fake" or "false spring" was not an actual phenomenon.
"That's not an official term," Mr Phillips said. "But you can definitely expect a lot of fluctuation [in weather], because we do."
He said conditions varied quite a lot from year to year and some popular terminologies didn't have much statistical backing.
