A lush İstanbul treasure: the Atatürk Arboretum

The entrance to the park has a sign that reads “You are currently in a museum of living plants and trees. This is not a simple park, but instead a collection of living plants and trees.” The first living creatures to greet us, however, were some friendly and good-natured dogs. The trees, more than anything else, make this park very different from the rest of the forest that surrounds it. A stroll around the little lake here is a stroll through trees that came all the way from North America, China, Japan, the former Yugoslavia, Mexico, and so on. This is truly an arboretum.

The Atatürk Arboretum hosts more than 2,000 trees on its grounds and is located on the road that connects Bahçeköy and Kemerburgaz. The spot was originally established by scientist Hayrettin Kayacık in 1949, and throughout the subsequent 60 years or so, people working for this living tree museum have fostered connections with other arboretums throughout the world to ensure that the Atatürk Arboretum now hosts all sorts of plants and trees that are not normally found in Turkey.

While many of the trees here have managed to adapt to the micro-climate provided by the Bahçeköy area, there are, of course, some which have not, and which remain stunted. Some of the most prized trees in this park are the American tulip tree, the Spanish fir tree, the American and Mexican oak trees, and the red-leaved Judas trees. Touring around this park only takes about 90 minutes, and you will notice the many different kinds of birds that this variety of trees hosts. You will also notice that you are almost never alone in this garden: There are ducks, dogs and birds all around. And if you are really lucky, you might even see one of the roe deer that may stray through the premises.

Picnics not allowed, but you can tour the park for free on weekdays

The arboretum does not allow picnicking on its grounds, but admission is free. Definitely intended for those with scientific interests, all the trees here bear signs noting where they came from and what they are named. All of this is to say, if you have a truly scientific interest in trees and plants, you might well find yourself spending up to three or four hours here on any given day. Interestingly, there really aren’t many people who visit this park -- mostly groups of students, despite the fact that you can visit for free on weekdays. When you visit the park as a group, a reservation must be made in advance, and the charge is TL 3 per person, TL 1 when the group comprises students. On weekends, only members can enter the park. Those interested in becoming members can apply for membership with management. The head of the arboretum, Mehmet Alan, notes that they treat visitors very seriously, as breaking even one leaf off a branch is forbidden here. There are paths all over the park, which is spread over 259 hectares of land, although visitors to the arboretum, who are given a special map to the land, are only allowed to tour 56 of these hectares.

Every oak in the world is here

Alright, but what are the best times to visit the Atatürk Arboretum? Alan says it’s “of course, during fall afternoons.” And truly, the sight of the many colors, particularly as they shine on the leaves in the wake of autumnal rainfall here, is one worth seeing. The land is also spectacularly gorgeous after snowfall. There is one section of this park that attracts an enormous amount of attention, and that is the oak parcel -- a full two-and-a-half hectares devoted solely to the oak tree.

Here, there are 100 kinds of oak, from all over the world. Of course, there are also 1,600 kinds of exotic plants as well as a tree found in Chinese graveyards, and a Chinese scythe tree, not to mention a mammoth tree from the United States, the Asian sweet gum, the Japanese hydrangea, the Arizona cypress and many others. In fact, you can really say that this state-connected arboretum is really one of the few spots in İstanbul that reveals all of the beauty of the fall in all of its glory these days.