Opened in 1857, the Adelaide Botanic Garden, a typical heritage botanic garden, has been shaped by a changing city and its many directors’ visions. Today it focuses on plant conservation, maintaining its unique living collections, education and undertaking leading botanical science. Art and culture based major events have also become the new normal and are not without their impacts. Historically, the city botanic gardens have hosted the internationally acclaimed WOMADelaide annually, as well as numerous international touring music artists in 15,000 audience concerts; and the technology driven winter festival centrepieces of Illuminate, including Light Cycles, Fire Gardens, Resonate and Night Visions.
In September 2024, a Dale Chihuly Garden Cycle, opened in the Adelaide Botanic Garden, an Adelaide exclusive, and southern hemisphere first. The Chihuly in the Botanic Garden free exhibition composed of 24 vibrant, large-scale glass or poly-vitro sculptures, were installed and landscaped seamlessly into the outdoor and glasshouse living collection. Chihuly Nights offered the ticketed, illuminated night experience. Over 1.2 million people attended.
This exhibition required creation of a botanically beautiful but robust landscape to enable the delivery of a sustainable, unique and seasonally changing experience for the entire seven-month event. Staging in the State Heritage listed Bicentennial Conservatory and Palm House presented their own distinctive challenges. The Living Collection and Horticulture teams’ learnings and journey prior to and because of this exhibition, to enable delivery of event horticulture excellence, in addition to the positive team culture outcomes are shared.