Nong Nooch Tropical Gardens in Thailand

25/5/2014 Visiting Nong Nooch Tropical Gardens in Thailand

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Visiting Nong Nooch Tropical Gardens in Thailand

By Geoff Stein (palmbob)November 26, 2010

I have twice visited this amazing garden on the other side of the world; it is probably one of the finest gardens in all of Asia, ifnot the world. It has the most amazing collection of tropical plants I have ever seen or heard of. The following article is a briefintroduction to this beautiful place, along with some photos of my most recent trip.

(Editor's Note: This article was originally published on November 3, 2008. Your

comments are welcome, but please be aware that authors of previously published

articles may not be able to promptly respond to new questions or comments.)

Until my first trip to Nong Nooch Gardens, I could boast of only a few forays over theMexican and Canadian borders and a trip to Hawaii. Then, suddenly I was on a 22-hourflight to Bangkok to see palm trees in Thailand. It was such a great trip, I repeated it fiveyears later for a cycad meeting.

One of the buses that drove us around Thailand

Scenes from Bangkok: (left) A large temple along one of the rivers that go through the city. (right) Topiary and sculptures in front of palatial building in Bangkok.

Nong Nooch is just inland from Pattaya, a resort town along the coast of southern Thailand, a 4 to 5 hour bus ride south fromBangkok. This is a huge place (over 500 acres) that started as a fruit tree orchard. It was slowly converted to a tropicalbotanical garden, as the owners fell in love with the other tropical gardens they had seen around the world. It is now thelargest plant collection in all of Asia and is run by Kampon Tansacha, the son of the woman for who the garden was named.is not only a massive plant collection but boasts some of the rarest plants found throughout the world.

(left) Views out a hotel window in Pattaya (right) Entrance sculptures at Nong Nooch Gardens

When you arrive at the gardens (we came via a troop of huge buses), you notice the endless scenes of various palms and

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tropical plants, giant greenhouses and shade structures, impeccably sculpted shrubs and trees, brilliant colors in everydirection and an amazing tidiness that is astounding for such a huge acreage. It turns out much of the working staff lives onthe premises and it is their full time jobs to take care of the place. They trim the plants, clean up the fallen leaves, mow theendless acres of lawns, create pots (all the potted plants are in clay pots made and fired on the garden grounds,) cook,clean, and prepare the entertainment (animal shows, dances, traditional Thai plays and activities) and basically make the

place look like a tropical Disneyland sans the rides.

Roads into gardens- WOW!!

Kampon Tansacha was a great host, being very kind and approachable despite being an extremely important and busy manin Thailand. We had excellent accommodations and transportation, as well as plenty of guides and assistants to help us andanswer questions. Dozens of helpers ran about with umbrellas on hot days, and if you were parched, there was always adrink to be had or an ice cream cone. We saw elephant shows, dancing, palms and cycads in the wild, enjoyed great andvery interesting foods; the entire visit was incredibly well planned and pleasant. I seriously doubt most people get that sort ofroyal treatment, but it sure made a good impression on us plant lovers.

Kampon Tansacha next to Euphorbia kamponii, a species named after him

Some of the Nong Nooch elephants

Other animals you could 'pet'

Kampon has nearly single-handedly created one of the finest palm gardens in the entire world, and also one of the mostamazing cycad collections as well. There are so many large, mature examples of rare palms that one could easily run out ofdigital room on ones laptop taking photos of everything. The gardens have over 500 palm species and for all I know it couldbe nearly double that. Thailand has a large native palm population and they were well-represented in the gardens. Thegarden had a huge number of Asian palms and an impressive population of Madagascan, New Caledonian and Americanpalms. There were a few amazing palms that are nearly extinct in the wild. I had always heard how amazing the SingaporeBotanical Gardens was (and it WAS impressive as we visited that one after leaving Thailand), but it really pales next to NongNooch Tropical Gardens in sheer number and variety of palms, though Nong Nooch is a much younger garden so many of itspalms are not as impressively old and massive (yet.)



Just some of the great palms: (left) Goldlen Adonidia merrillii; (middle) Arenga undulatifolia; (right) Areca macrocalyx

(left) Bentinkia nicobarica; (middle) Copernicia macroglossa; (right) Corypha utan

Several unique palms: (left) Dypsis leptocheilos x cabadae; (middle) Dypsis lutescens 'Shuttlecock'; (right) Hyophorbe lagenicaulis x verschaffeltii

(left) Hyphaene petersiana; (middle) Joey Palms; (right) Kerriodoxa (a native species)



Just a few of the many dozens of amazing Licualas in their collection: (left) L. grandis variegated; (middle) L. obiculari;s (right) L.radula

Some rare ones: (left) Pelagodoxa; (middle) A very unusual blue-leaved Phoenix species; (right) A super-rare Pritchardiopsis (maybe only one outside NewCaledonia?)

Just three rare species of hundreds of cycads in the collection: (left) Zamia poeppigiana; (middle) Zamia pseudomonticola; (right) Zamia skinneri

The first time I went, I was digitally challenged and took 40 rolls of regular film. The second time I took a digital camera, butdigital cameras were expensive and not all that great then. I did not get the number of photos I should have. NEXT time--ifthere is one--I will be sure to fill my laptop with photos. My goal would to be get multiple photos of every palm and cycad onthe premises, but I'm not sure that would be possible.

I started to just shoot every cycad and palm I could, but it was not possible



Signs were everywhere; oops! Translations are not always perfect! On my second visit to Nong Nooch Kampon had erected an extensive aerial walkway so nowone could actually view all the palms from 20 feet in the air!

The gardens are not limited to these two plant groups, though at the time those were really all I cared about (I wish I could goback a third time and catch up on all the other plants they 'specialize' in there.) Huge structures are devoted to bromeliads,

some to Euphorbia milli varieties, hundreds of square yards of Sansevierias, a fern house, an orchid greenhouse, acres ofbonsai, a house devoted solely to variegated Rhapis palm varieties. There is a large formal garden, full of topiaries and

incredibly carved/sculpted plants of an endless variety of geometric shapes. Wrightii tomentosa all pruned into upside-downhalf spheres adorn multiple areas of the gardens. There is a silver garden full of palms, cycads and a fantastic variety ofsilver, blue and variegated succulents. Some of the roads are lined with endless rows of massive, rare and perfectly grownpalms. It is a botanical dream come true for someone like me. It's too bad I can't just live there.

Just a few of the hundreds of Euphorbia millii varieties; there was literally an acre of these!

There must have been over 1000 Bougainvillea plants in ornamental pots, all which were made on the premises

(left) A large cactus garden covered with glass to keep the rain off. (right) Huge sculpture in the middle of the palm garden.

Sansevierias like this covered hundreds of yards of acreage, all in their own concrete pots



The bromeliad area (could have spent an entire day just looking at this family of plants)

(left) Fern house; (middle and right) A few of the large and incredibly rare collection of variegated Rhapis palms

Wonderful 'lollipop' gardens of Wrightii tomentosa were all over; many dome-shaped plants decorated the landscape

Great colors, patterns and three-dimensional shapes, all made of plant material



Views of Kampon's version of Stonehenge

There were several large lakes; some were sites of future water gardens

One of my favorite sections was this large, rocky, Silver Garden full of silver colored palms, cycads and succulents of dizzying varieties

Not all pots (created on the premises) were used to plant things in

The climate is rainy part of the year and relatively dry the rest of the year, but it is never cold, being only a short distance northof the equator. It looked to me that the soil was clay, which just goes to show what one can grow in that sort of soil, in aclimate in which it never gets cold. It does get pretty hot, though no worse than it does in Miami and it's always fairly humid. I



was concerned we might be exposed to malaria while we were there, yet I saw fewer mosquitoes than I do most nights herein southern California (almost none.)

I can't vouch for the quality, safety and cleanliness of the nearby resort town of Pattaya, but Nong Nooch gardens is awonderfully clean and comfortable sanctuary. We actually were surprised how nice most of Thailand was. I certainly wouldrecommend visiting the country, but you HAVE to visit Nong Nooch Gardens while you are there or you will miss an incredibletropical botanical garden that may just be one of the finest gardens in all the world.

About Geoff Stein

Veterinarian and Exotic Plant Lover... and obsessive, compulsive collector of all oddballtropical and desert plants.

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Discussion about this article:

New? Subject Topic Starter Replies Views Last Post

Yes! breathtaking! trackinsand 0 1 Dec 21, 2013 11:10 AM

Yes! Would love to visit! Thanks. eurmac 0 10 Nov 29, 2010 8:38 PM

Yes! Palm Garden at Nong Nooch alocasia 0 13 Nov 29, 2010 12:49 PM

Yes! Nong Nooch Gardens marthabud 0 12 Nov 29, 2010 12:06 PM

Yes! Kampon amygirl 0 16 Nov 29, 2010 4:35 AM

Yes! Thank You! Sashagirl 0 10 Jul 29, 2010 7:23 PM

Yes! Wonderful! plantladylin 2 15 Aug 5, 2009 4:07 PM

Yes! Nong Nooch Gardens Sharonpatricia 0 9 Feb 13, 2009 5:04 AM

Yes! INCREDIBLE! I am so envious LiliMerci 0 15 Nov 10, 2008 3:51 PM

Yes! Nong Nooch Gardens edrcook1 0 16 Nov 7, 2008 9:23 AM

Yes! Nong Nooch Gardens caycad 0 12 Nov 7, 2008 3:52 AM

Yes! Wonderful Garden betra 0 12 Nov 5, 2008 7:39 PM

Yes! Nong nooch garden. anandkbhatt 6 54 Nov 4, 2008 7:04 AM

Yes! Nong Nooch Gardens RSBarclay 1 16 Nov 4, 2008 3:27 AM

Yes! thank you for sharing nong nooch gardens Andy_pandy 0 11 Nov 4, 2008 2:34 AM

Yes! Thankyou sharing your Thai adventure chrissy100 1 31 Nov 4, 2008 1:53 AM

Yes! Royal Flora Expo 2006 in northern Thaila pauliney 0 17 Nov 4, 2008 12:48 AM

Yes! Great phicks 0 15 Nov 3, 2008 8:58 PM

Yes! Nong Nooch Gardens msandridge 0 17 Nov 3, 2008 8:49 PM

Yes! Nong Nooch Gardens herbs501 0 21 Nov 3, 2008 3:00 PM

Yes! Nong Nooch Gardens ai50171 0 23 Nov 3, 2008 1:26 PM

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