Images largest carpet of flowers with an area of 2000 square meters

Its merchant palaces already dripping with centuries-old gold leaf, the Grand Place in Brussels has now been decked out with 600,000 stunning begonias in a giant tribute to Africa.The flowers have been painstakingly woven into a 1,800sqm carpet inspired by the tapestries of Ethiopia, Congo, Nigeria, Botswana and Cameroon. Basking in fittingly balmy temperatures, the display has taken over what is already one of Belgium's biggest visitor attractions and is expected to be viewed by 100,000 people over the weekend. In situ until Sunday, the Brussels mayoral deputy responsible for tourism, Philippe Close, said the locally-grown floral tribute by www.flowercarpet.be was a big hit with Japanese and other overseas TV crews. The begonias, chosen for their qualities of robustness, resistance to bad weather and strong colours, were cultivated in the Ghent area of the country. The first Floral Carpet in its present-day form was created in 1971 on the Grand Place by the landscape architect E. Stautemans and has been hugely popular ever since. It can often take up to a year to plan the carpets using scale models and illustrations for the bi-annual events. But with the experience and skills of a hundred gardeners, the final jigsaw can be pieced together in under four hours.