Araluen

Araluen Botanical Park is in the hills outside Perth, and has long been a popular place for locals to enjoy, especially in springtime. Most people associate it with the tulips planted there, but there are many other flowering plants as well, and some nice picnic spaces. Araluen has its own micro-climate making it a good place to grow tulips, which generally would not survive Perth’s warm Mediterranean climate. I visited the park – as I have often done previously – and enjoyed meandering around it. It was towards the end of the annual Tulip Festival, but there were still many beautiful specimens on display. The park was originally privately owned; however, when the owner was contemplating selling it (and it might then have become a housing estate), the Western Australian government purchased it so that it can be permanently a park. A small army of volunteers is responsible for the annual planting of tulips.

Here are a few photos of tulips from my visit. including some close-up shots. Tulips seem to come in many different colours and shapes. I can still recall seeing a bright red tulip coming out of the snow in Chicago years ago – and love the bright colours. If you click on a photo, you can see more of it.

Although tulips are the most prominent (at least at the time I visited) there are other plants besides tulips at the park, including some lovely irises and blossoms. Here is a selection of them.

I love the wisteria on the small restaurant (Chalet Healy) at Araluen. The two photos are taken from outside and inside the restaurant. I also love the greenery around the park. The ferns below are good examples of fractals (these are mathematical shapes that are ‘self-similar’ in the sense that a larger frond is made up of smaller fronds of the same shape, which are in turn made up of smaller fronds of the same shape …).

On the day we visited, I was a little surprised to notice that most of the other visitors looked as if they came from various south-east Asian or South and West Asian cultures; it’s impossible to tell without asking them of course: I expect many were (like us) local citizens enjoying a day in the hills, while some others may be tourists. Maybe many locals have visited Araluen many times before so that it is no longer a novelty? I don’t know, but think it would be a shame if locals didn’t visit Araluen at least once a year to enjoy the floral magnificence. And it’s a lot easier than gardening.

A lovely spot to visit, whether you are a local or a visitor, especially around August in Perth.