The Garden of Reeds home to Chiang Rai Flower and Art Festival 2022.
You find The Garden of Reeds next to the Kok River in the northeastern part of Chiang Rai. If you need to ask for directions, the park is called Suan Nai Ngam Rim Nam Kok in Thai. It is nice to know, but it is a little long, so I will stick to The Garden of Reeds.
It is a small park, next to a university, and in the later years, has become the home of the Chiang Rai Flower and Art Festival. When the Chiang Rai Flower Festival, first started in 2004, it was in an attempt to attract more tourists to Chiang Rai.
The festival has been located in several different places around the city, but now it has ended up in The garden of Reeds.
When I visited Chiang Rai, I found out it was the same time as they had the flower festival. I love flowers, so it was an opportunity I couldn’t miss, so I paid a visit to the show.
It was late December, one of the coldest months, especially as far north as Chiang Rai; it can get chilly.
It allowed the gardeners and flower decorators to display colder climate flowers that you usually do not see in Thailand.
The display of the colder climate flowers that grow high in northern Thailand’s hills is one of the features the Chiang Rai Flower Festival is known for.
In particular, there was a fantastic display of lilies – a rare sight in Thailand. There were, of course, also many other kinds of flowers that normally only grow in colder climates.
I won’t bore you with long Latin or Thai flower names, so have a look at the pictures and see for yourself.
Like pretty much every other flower exhibition I’ve seen in Thailand, there was an abundance of flowering plants in a myriad of different colors.
And of course, there were also all the other features you can expect to see when you go to a flower show in Thailand.
One of the main features you see at all Thai flower shows, at least the ones with respect for themselves, is the orchid collection with the waterfall.
The garden of reeds in Chiang Rai didn’t disappoint. In fact, I was impressed by how much effort the decorators have put into making an incredible orchid display.
The waterfall was fantastic, especially when you keep in mind it was a man-made electric-powered waterfall in a park in the middle of a big city. Even though it used a pump to pump the water to the top; it was impressive.
In addition to the waterfall, tiny water sprinklers created a fine mist that enveloped the orchid area and created a fantastic fairytale atmosphere.
There were orchids of, many different species in beautiful vibrant colors, a show that you rarely see outside Thailand. You need to remember that most orchids only flower once a year and usually only for one month.
To get as many orchids flowering simultaneously as there were in the Garden of Reeds, you need a stock many times that number to choose from.
I have visited many orchid nurseries in Thailand. What always amazes me is how few orchids in the greenhouses are flowering compared to how many orchids there are in total in the nursery.
This fact makes an orchid exhibition like the one in Garden of Reeds something really unique.
The show was called the Chiang Rai Flower and Art Festival. So there were also works of art displayed throughout the park.
I must honestly admit that while gardens and flower shows are some of my great passions, interpreting modern art is not one of my strong suits.
I do not want to offend the artists or make a fool of myself, so I will refrain from commenting on the various works of art.
The saying, A picture is worth a thousand words, fits perfectly here. So I will let you figure out what the artist’s fantasy was.
The Garden of Reed also had a collection of mountain tribes’ houses from around northern Thailand. Each tribe has its own distinctive building style; however, bamboo is the primary building material regardless of the tripe.
I did not have as much time to check out the houses in The Garden of Reed as I wanted, but I am sure I will get the chance another time at another show.
I have been to many different exhibitions around Thailand and a collection of hill tribe houses is one of the regular features.
I will like to go more in-depth with the different hill tribes’ history and how they live. I am sure there are many fascinating stories to be told. But it will have until I find the right opportunity.
A feature you always can find when you go to an exhibition in Thailand; is stalls selling food, clothes, and other stuff… but mostly food. So don’t worry… it doesn’t matter what kind of show you go to. You don’t have to starve.
Especially when you go to flower shows, you can almost always find an area where local gardeners sell their products. It is always very exciting to see what is growing in the area.
Many times I also find plants being sold at a really good price. I have a big car, but I often think it is too small because it doesn’t have room for all the flowers and plants I would like to buy.
How to find The Garden of Reeds
Get a helping hand to find the The Garden of Reeds in Chiang Rai. As you can see it is a little outside of the city to the north east.