The Ballarat Begonia Festival features music, food and stalls and celebrates flowers and gardening, with an emphasis on education and engaging children, throughout the March long-weekend.

Volunteers from children's gardening program BotaniKIDS are prepared to help up to 3500 children pot their own plant throughout the festival.

BotaniKIDS convenor Julie Bradby said it was an opportunity for families to be outside and getting their hands dirty together.

"It is fantastic because the kids come with their parents and sometimes their grandparents, so we have this family focus," she said.

"I have just been speaking to a grandmother who is setting up a garden with her grandchildren. These plants will be really lovely for the garden they are doing together.

"We talk to the kids about the roots of the plants, what the plant needs when it goes home and how they can look after it."

More than 50 volunteers will be at the festival throughout the weekend to run the BotaniKIDS program, created by the Friends of the Ballarat Botanical Gardens.

Dozens of other Friends of the Ballarat Botanical Gardens volunteers are manning various stalls at the festival, including plant sales and 'plant creche', where festival-goers can have their purchased plants safely minded while they explore other parts of the festival.

See The Courier photographer Lachlan Bence's full gallery of photos below.

Friends of the Ballarat Botanical Gardens life member Yvonne Curbach said she and other volunteers had been working hard for months to grow and prepare hundreds of plants for sale.

She said it was good to see so many people celebrating the gardens and helping to raise funds to support continual improvement work.

"The gardens are beautiful. We love doing what we do," Mr Curbach said.

While plant sales were popular, the 500 colourful begonias inside the Robert Clark Conservatory also drew a crowd.

Take a look at the begonias inside the Robert Clark Conservatory in the video below.

Gardening Australia host Costa Georgiadis was a favourite on the Begonia Stage on Saturday, as well as dirtgirl and Gardening Australia presenter Sophie Thomson.

Mr Georgiadis presented on 'keeping it local' alongside Grampians Central West Waste and Resource Recovery Group.

Grampians Central West Waste and Resource Recovery Group executive officer La Vergne Lehmann said the Begonia Festival had a strong focus on the improvement of waste management improvement.

Clearly signed waste stations included compostable material collection.

"We have people volunteers the bins to help people to put the right things in the bin and trying to engage people with what goes in each bins," she said.

"That is part of the education for not just the event but when they go home too."

See a snippet of the performance from the Ballarat Clarendon College band Feet below.

Ms Lehmann said the festival waste management model that focused on improving recycling and separating organics could be applied to other City of Ballarat events.

The Ballarat Begonia Festival was launched in the autumn of 1953 by local Ballarat residents who were keen to highlight and celebrate the growing post-war prosperity of their town and the local region.

City of Ballarat Mayor Ben Taylor said it has become a major tourist event and he was expecting it to attract around 6000 visitors to Ballarat.

Masterchef contestants Tim Bone, Anushka Zargaryan and Poh Ling Yeow are promoted as festival highlights on Sunday's program.

Up to 10,000 people will line Wendouree Parade on Monday for the much-loved Begonia Parade.

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