Trelinnoe Park - Trelinnoe Park 580 Old Taupo Coach Road

Welcome to one of New Zealand's finest woodland gardens.

In 1956 brothers Brian and John Wills took up residence on 2800 acres (1134 ha's) of waste scrubland that had not been successfully farmed. 
Their ambition was to create a profitable and pleasing farming enterprise. 
The result was Trelinnoe Park.

The park’s 30 acres have an exceptionally wide and varied collection of trees, shrubs, perennials and natives. 
Landscaped woodland paths, wide sweeps of lawns, clipped hedges, hillsides of flowering trees and spectacular vistas make an exceptional garden.
There are many unusual and rare trees and shrubs. Two Mexican hand flower trees Chiranthodendron pentadactylon flourish. You can enjoy our groups of Franklinia alatamaha , a tree sized hydrangea from Indo­china, a yellow flowered hydrangea from Yunnan. The clouds of golden flowers displayed by our parrotiopsis jacquemontiana are some of the treasures.

The floor of the woodland garden displays plantings of perennials and ground covers. Early spring sees mass flowering of daffodils, jonquils and a wide selection of other spring bulbs. Clivias add their warm colours of orange and red. Iris cast their reflections in the small lakes. Drifts of astilbes and rogercias paint colour along the stream sides. In parts of the garden the lush leaves and strong perfume of Himalayan lilies, Cardiocrinum giganteum create an extensive understory of great interest in early summer.

The garden has wide expanses of lawns which are a structural feature of the design, giving a feeling of freedom also setting off the slopes of woodland planting. The framing of vistas both within and beyond the garden is a strong element of its structure.

History.

John and Brian called their piece of land Trelinnoe (pronounced Tree-lin-o ) in memory of a farm in Cornwall where their grandfather grew up before immigrating to New Zealand.

By the mid sixties, the farm was sufficiently developed to allow some time off for John to express his life interest in gardening. For the rest of their lives John and his wife Fiona steadily developed the garden with continued planting and creative landscaping. Today the park extends to 12ha (30 acres).