Floriade to feature Anzac theme

Canberra's flagship tourism event Floriade will join Anzac centenary commemorations.

Garden beds depicting the poppy, the Southern Cross and the slouch hat will feature in the popular flower festival, which starts on September 23.

Australian War Memorial director Brendan Nelson says it is fitting that flowers be used to pay tribute to the nation's war dead because they signify renewal and birth.

He touched on the WWI poem In Flanders Fields, about poppies growing among the graves of fallen soldiers.

It was important to theme Floriade around commemorations, with the "immense sense of life and joy" that came with viewing the blooms, he told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.

Meanwhile the ACT government is considering moving parts of the event to outside Commonwealth Park in 2016 for the first time in almost three decades.