Every September, Perth remembers that it lives next door to one of the great wildflower regions on Earth. The reminder comes from Kings Park, where the Everlasting Kings Park Festival has just finished its 2026 run.

This year's festival ran from Friday 18 September to Sunday 4 October. That is 17 days of displays, guided walks, talks, workshops and family activities, most of them in the Western Australian Botanic Garden, and it ended with something the park had never tried before.

The main event is still the flowers

The festival has been held every September since 1964, which makes it one of the longest-running festivals in Australia. Its organisers say this spring's display took in thousands of wildflowers and more than 3,000 Western Australian plant species.

The stars are the ones in the name. Pink and white everlastings are sown in broad drifts through the garden beds and under the trees, and at their peak they turn whole slopes the colour of a paper-daisy quilt.

Three years of work for three weeks of colour

What is easy to miss while you are taking photos is how much work sits under those beds. The plants are grown from seed in the Kings Park Nursery. Garden planning, seed germination and growing can begin up to three years before each festival.

In the three months before opening, about 25 staff and 20 volunteers plant the wildflowers out. Volunteers stay on through the festival too, with the Kings Park Volunteer Guides and the Friends of Kings Park among the groups behind the walks and talks.

That effort is the festival's real strength. You are not looking at a flower show trucked in for the fortnight. You are looking at a working botanic garden at its best moment of the year.

More than everlastings

Walk past the showpiece beds and the garden turns into a tour of the state. The South West of WA, including Perth, is one of only two globally recognised biodiversity hotspots in Australia, and the Botanic Garden is laid out as a series of living collections from across it.

Kangaroo paws are everywhere in spring, from the red and green state emblem to cultivated hybrids in colours you will not find in the bush. The Banksia Garden is worth the detour on its own.

The finale: Moortabiny

The new addition for 2026 came at the very end. For three nights, from 2 to 4 October, the Botanic Garden hosted Moortabiny (Becoming Family), billed as the first drone show ever presented by Kings Park and Botanic Garden.

The show's storytelling was based on the work of Professor Kim Scott, the two-time Miles Franklin Literary Award winner. Its formations were inspired by WA landscapes, native plants and the rhythms of the natural world. On the ground there was a soundscape, with "sonic stations" sharing stories of significant trees and native species, plus food stalls.

Unlike most of the festival, Moortabiny was ticketed. Environment Minister Matthew Swinbourn described it as an event "bringing together culture, storytelling, and technology".

It was a smart way to close. A drone show gives a daytime festival a reason to stay after dark, and it does it without fireworks over a bushland park.

What worked

• The price: entry to Kings Park and the Botanic Garden is free, and so were many of the festival's displays, walks and talks.
• The length: 17 days, three weekends and a long weekend meant you could pick your weather.
• The range: there was something for the serious plant person and something for a four-year-old.

What to know for next time

• Book early: some workshops and events needed bookings or tickets, so check the program as soon as it comes out.
• Go on a weekday: parking along Fraser Avenue is hard to find on a sunny spring weekend.
• Bring a hat and water: the best displays are a decent walk from the car.

The verdict

After 62 years the Everlasting Kings Park Festival does not need reinventing, and in 2026 it wisely was not. The flowers were the point, the program around them was mostly free, and the drone finale added something new without getting in the way.

If you missed it, you have not missed everything. The festival is over but the garden is not. Kings Park is free and open every day, and spring in the Botanic Garden does not stop on the day the banners come down.

This review draws on the festival's published program and announcements. The photographs were taken in Kings Park during earlier spring seasons.

Photo credits

• Cover: Everlastings, Kings Park by Gnangarra via Wikimedia Commons, August 2015 (CC BY 2.5 AU), cropped.
• Everlastings beneath the trees: Kings Park by Gnangarra via Wikimedia Commons, August 2015 (CC BY 2.5 AU).
• Carpet of everlastings: Kings Park by Gnangarra via Wikimedia Commons, August 2015 (CC BY 2.5 AU).
• Red and green kangaroo paw: Kangaroo Paw by Gnangarra via Wikimedia Commons, 2005 (public domain).
• Kangaroo paw hybrid: Anigozanthos hybrid in Kings Park by Calistemon via Wikimedia Commons, October 2023 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
• Banksia Garden path: Kings Park, Banksia garden path by Orderinchaos via Wikimedia Commons, September 2016 (CC BY-SA 4.0).