Eastwoodhill Arboretum

Eastwoodhill is the national arboretum of New Zealand. It covers 131ha and is located 35 km northwest of Gisborne, in the hill country of Ngatapa. It was founded in 1910 by William Douglas Cook. Cook's life work would become the creation of a giant collection of Northern Hemisphere temperate climate zone trees in New Zealand – a dream that would eventually cost him all his money – buying and importing thousands of trees from New Zealand and British nurseries.When his health deteriorated in the 1960s, he sold his property to H. B. (Bill) Williams, who established the Eastwoodhill Trust Board in 1975 as a charitable trust, donating the arboretum to the trust to safeguard it for future generations.Of all the arboreta of the Southern Hemisphere, Eastwoodhill Arboretum is said to have the largest collection of trees of the temperate climate zone of the Northern Hemisphere. It includes some 4,000 different trees, shrubs and climbers, including 170 species currently on the IUCN world endangered species list.HistoryFoundingThe history of Eastwoodhill Arboretum will remain permanently connected with the life of William Douglas Cook . Douglas Cook, Cookie to his close friends, was born 28 October 1884 at New Plymouth, New Zealand. In 1910, he established a farm of 250 hectares in the Ngatapa settlement, calling the property 'Eastwoodhill', after his mother's family home in Thornliebank near Glasgow. The first foundations for the present arboretum were laid then. Douglas Cook started creating a garden immediately. He planted trees, but also roses, flowers, shrubs and vegetables.