Kings Park and Botanic Garden in Perth, Australia

Located in the centre of Perth, Kings Park and Botanic Garden is one of the world’s biggest inner-city green spaces. Visitors love its picnic areas and playgrounds, and nature lovers are wowed by its vast areas of bush and displays of more than 3000 species of flora. While tourists take selfies with city and river backdrops, the space is also loved by locals, who enjoy the changing scenery of the bushland walk trails and immaculate gardens, as well as the popular outdoor concerts, live theatre and films from November to April.

I especially love the mighty 750-year-old boab tree, which survived a 3200km journey to Kings Park from the Kimberley region of Western Australia in 2008, and the Banksia Garden, with its beautiful mosaic pathways and benches. 

There’s also a floral clock with jarrah hands from the 1960s (pictured above), featuring carved images of koalas, kookaburras and kangaroo paws. The clock face uses Westringia fruticosa ‘Smokey’ for the roman numerals, yellow buttons (Chrysocephalum apiculatum) in the centre and a mix of kangaroo paws, conostylis and fan flowers (Scaevola spp.) around the edge. 

If you visit with children and don’t mind them getting dirty, head for the Rio Tinto Naturescape, where they can explore, climb ropes, wade through creeks, build cubbies and make their own fun while having a bush experience in the heart of Perth. This 6ha area has accessible paths, bridges and boardwalks.

The Lotterywest Federation Walkway offers a spectacular 40-minute return walk through the Garden, with views of the Swan and Canning Rivers, the Water Garden and the marri woodland forest. An elevated section, open from 9am to 5pm, has a curved glass bridge suspended among tall eucalypts.

Western Australia has five per cent of the world’s flora, most of it endemic. The state’s floral diversity and wealth is celebrated in plantings that represent flora from different parts of the state.

All September, Kings Park celebrates spring as wildflowers endemic to the South West region of Western Australia burst into bloom. The month is dedicated to the Kings Park Festival and, while the bushland contains many orchids and floral treasures, the horticultural staff plant out a huge range of spectacular flowering species into the garden beds. Last year, at its 57th festival, 25,000 plants were in full bloom, making it a spectacular display.

Expect to see swathes of everlastings in pink, yellow and white, and mass displays of the state’s most spectacular flowering species and hybrids during spring. Some of my favourite natives that are flowering at that time are waxflower, red and green kangaroo paw, boronia, Swan River daisy, qualup bell (Pimelea physodes), scaevola, grevillea, verticordia and the shrub-like rose of the west (Eucalyptus macrocarpa), which has the biggest of all gum flowers.

Need to know

Kings Park and Botanic Garden is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year (except Christmas day), and entry is free. Visitors can enjoy free barbecues, picnic areas, three cafes, two kiosks, an award-winning restaurant and gift shop, Aspects of Kings Park, which sells work by contemporary Australian artists. The Visitor Information Service beside the gift shop is open daily, except Christmas Day, from 9.30am to 4pm.

To get there from the Perth CBD, walk westward up St Georges Tce, or take the Transperth bus route 935 from St Georges Tce into the Fraser Avenue Precinct.

For more information, visit bgpa.wa.gov.au

Header image by iStock