Suddenly, Canberra is in bloom.
The big formal Floriade may have been cancelled as a mass crowd event and dispersed around the city - but nature has stepped in to turn verges into a sea of yellow.
It turns out that the Cape Dandelion is blooming brightly because of the drought. It seems to be everywhere. It loves dry, bare earth so it's taken advantage on the verges which line commuter routes into the city.
"They are all around the street and our front and back garden," Rachel Desmond said.
"I chopped them down with a lawn mower and they were back the next day."
Her son Vernon brings the bright yellow flower in as a bouquet for her. Her daughters Josie and Lilly make daisy chains.
But the bloom which is brightening our lives is a weed, according to Geoff Robertson, President of the Friends of Grasslands in Canberra.
The Cape Dandelion (Arctotheca calendula)came from South Africa. It is also know as the Cape Marigold, the Cape Daisy, the Plain Treasure Flower, Silver Spreader or, less romantically, capeweed.
Mr Robertson said the weed was not as threatening to native Australian plants as other imported weeds like African Lovegrass, Chilean Needlegrass or Serrated Tussock.
"This is not one which is particularly worrisome," he said of the Cape Dandelion.
The more worrying weeds he cited were a threat not just to vegetation but to cattle because they contained no nutrition but made cows feel they were full when they weren't. The result was that the animals might starve to death.
Weeds have grown since the dry weather and drought because so much land was left bare. Seeds settled and the rains did the rest.
This can disrupt nature, according to Mr Robertson. "Native plants provide food for insects," he said, "and they are the basis for the food chain."
Native Australian insects don't tend to eat imported species and that gives the incomer a competitive advantage.
However pretty the flowers are, farmers don't like them, though. They think the weeds crowd out other more useful plants.
"It is an incredibly competitive weed which can result in crop yield reduction," according to Bayer, the company which manufactures agricultural weed killer.
"A single plant can produce a huge number of seeds.
"Capeweed can be noxious to livestock and other animals. The large rosettes are more invasive than other weed species and draw on all soil nutrients. Capeweed can be a hardy weed."
It looks nice, though.
