Tulip Time

The Tulip Time festival in Bowral is in full swing so we went to see the tulips in Corbett Gardens. The sun was shining, for once, and there were a lot of people having fun.
 
In the early 1900s Ada Corbett had a dream for a public park in Bowral that would be “a carpet square of beauty, a recreation resort and garden, and with a bandstand in its centre."

Ada was a feisty lady who never took 'no' for an answer, peppering the press and politicians with proposals for the creation of a park from a disused paddock which she described as “the tip for old tins, dead cats and a blot on Bowral".
 
Sadly Ada left Bowral in 1912 and never returned to see her dream realised. Her persistence was rewarded, though, and in 1914 the park was opened and named ‘Corbett Gardens’.
 
The first Tulip Time festival was held in 1961, with the Gardens as its centrepiece. Over the years the festival has expanded to include an entertainment program and community stalls in the Gardens and open gardens around the Highlands. It's claimed that 75,000 tulips were planted in the Gardens this year and at the end of the festival local residents will have the chance to dig some of them up to replant at home. In the past it was a bit of a gamble what colour your tulips would turn out to be. Now you can just scan a barcode for details of the tulips in each bed (extra 2).