Tropical Park Nong Nooch

Nong Nooch Tropical Park is a 2.4 km ² botanical gardens and local attractions located on the 163rd kilometer of Sukhumvit Road in Chonburi Province, Thailand, near the resort city of Pattaya.

In 1954, Mr. Pisit and Mrs. Nong Nooch Tansacha purchased the land. Initially, it was planned to create fruit and vegetable plantations, but later it was decided to orient the park towards tourists, and restaurants, bungalows, swimming pools, and banquet halls were created. In 1980, the park was opened to everyone. In 2010, at the exhibition of florists in the UK in Chelsea, the Nong Nooch garden won in the nomination "Tropical plants".

Now the Nong Nooch Tropical Park is one of the largest botanical gardens in Southeast Asia. There is a rich collection of tropical plants here. Much attention is paid to the conservation of endangered species. The garden staff is ready to send seeds of such plants grown in Nong Nooch to everyone. The garden consists of demonstration gardens with unique landscaping in different styles, collection plantings, special rooms where butterflies are kept, orchids and cacti are grown. There are two large artificial ponds, a miniature railway, a theater, a zoo, and a college of landscape architecture. Students, and there are 700 students in each course, practice in the park. The entire park area is conveniently covered with a network of paths that will lead you to all the interesting corners and allow you to enjoy magnificent views. The terrain is interesting. In many places, suspension bridges have been installed over ravines, where visitors pass at the level of the tops of palm trees and can examine their inflorescences and fruits. A bright arrangement of flowering clipped shrubs unfolded at the main entrance. It follows the lines of the relief, even the paths run at an angle.

A unique collection of palm trees and ferns has been collected and continues to be replenished in the Nong Nooch Tropical Park. In September 1998, the park hosted the International Palm Society (200 delegates representing 33 countries), which determined that the park has the largest collection of palm species growing in one place. Currently, there are 2,600-2,800 species and varieties of palm trees in the world, of which 1,100 species are registered in Nong Nooch Park. It is planned to increase the collection to 2,000 species in the coming years. The main goal of the park's director and management is to collect the most complete collection of palm species and varieties. Currently, the collection contains some palm species that are found only here outside their range of growth. In the future, their importance cannot be overestimated as an object of research by professionals or simple admiration by plant lovers.

Tourists often refer to Nong Nooch as the Orchid Garden. Indeed, orchids are a special pride of the park. The process of growing these delicate and fragile plants is very laborious. They are grown here in greenhouses in special hanging baskets. Orchids are epiphytes; in nature, orchids do not grow on the ground, but settle on tree trunks, content with water from humid tropical air and nutrients that they can take from the surface of the bark. Orchid seeds are very small and easily carried by the wind. A huge number of orchid species are now being grown in Thailand. They decorate cocktails, make wreaths, which are hung on the houses of spirits near the houses where Thais come to pray every morning. In addition to orchids and palm trees, Nong Nooch Park has a large collection of cacti, the most common of which is prickly pear. A midge settles on this cactus, from which red paint is obtained.

Since 2000, a Butterfly Garden has been opened in Nong Nooch, which is a house made of fine mesh. About one and a half thousand of these insects live here, among which there are babies and real giants, the largest butterflies in the world. In their garden, among the riot of tropical plants, they live freely: first, voracious caterpillars chew the greens, then the pupal stage follows, and at the end of life, for only 2-4 weeks, a beautiful butterfly appears, which must have time to lay eggs and give birth to the next generation.

Madame Nong Nooch's son, Kampong Tansacha, has been the owner of the Nong Nooch Tropical Park since 2001. One of his hobbies was car racing and sports cars. However, in the fleet of the current owner of the garden there are not only sports cars, all cars in the collection are exclusive. The Campona Tansacha car park is located in the center of the garden itself, with about 40 vehicles located on two floors of a specialized parking lot. A visit to the car park is part of the excursion program. The collection contains cars of such famous brands as Cadillac, Ford, Lotus, BMW, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Mini, Nissan. An inspection of this collection is included in the price of the entrance ticket. The price of visiting the park also includes two shows. The first one is folklore, with traditional dances and dances of different nationalities of Thailand. The second is a show of trained elephants from the elephant farm of the park.