Lying right on the Tisza River in Hungary, about 140 km east of Budapest and 40 km southeast of the county capital Szolnok, the Tiszakürt Arboretum is one of the largest well maintained dendrological parks of the southeastern part of Central Europe.  With close to 60 ha of total area including 20 ha of the original land, it has great potential to become a collection of international importance.

As shown by substantial geological discoveries, the area where Kürt - Tiszakürt today - was established was settled as early as 4500 years ago in the Bronze-Age, and was one of the most important north-south river-crossings until as late as the 17th century. The oldest document known that mentions the village is the 1075 land-grant letter of the Hungarian King, Géza I. (1074-77) in which he donated lands for the Benedictine Order in the Upper Hungarian Garam-Szentbenedek region (Hronsk Benadik, Slovakia today).
Most of the land where the Arboretum lies today was once influenced by the 800 km long Tisza River, whose headwaters are in the East Carpathians (Ukraine today). Joining the Danube in the Bansag/Banat region in Southern Hungary (Serbia today), it was known as "the Hungarian river" until 1921 when the country was split apart after World War I.
Depending on the amount of rainfall, particularly in the Carpathians, the water level of the Tisza greatly fluctuates. It had a reputation as the wildest and perhaps the most unpredictable large river of the Carpathian Basin until the flooding was controlled by 600 km long, 12 m high levee in the mid-19th century. When the river with its hundreds of meandering curves reached the level floodplain of the Great Hungarian Plain, it melted away into a huge island-dotted wetland unsuitable for human settlement.  A large part of the Tisza Valley thus became one of Europe's largest wildlife sanctuaries. Settlements along the Tisza were built on loess islands of late Pleistocene origin, soils blown from Central Asia and even as far east as the Gobi Desert, or sand plateaus deposited by the Danube's constantly changing wide floodplains which periodically reached the region where Kürt was later built. The higher elevation (to 86 m) loess areas provided security and arable land for the village, while the sandy areas supported rich fruit gardens and vineyards. The adjacent poorer alkali soil regions were used for grazing land, while in the lower, wet areas near the river, vegetable gardens and lush meadows flourished though these were periodically washed away by the river. After the dam was built, large tracts of land became available for humans, greatly reducing the wilderness area and eliminating the unique, once-famous fishing lifestyle ("csikasz-pakasz") of the marsh-dwelling people in the Tisza-valley.
The climate is rather harsh here with cold winters (-25 Co may occur twice in every 10 years) and dry summers (540 mm/11 inches of rain per year). Based on this, the region would not seem to be very appropriate for a rich dendrological collection-however, just the opposite is true: the high watertable in vast areas of the Plain (formerly between 1 or 3 m in depth on average) combined with the warm temperatures creates an almost subtropical environment, allowing cultivation of a wide range of exotic plants or the regeneration of forests in disturbed places.

When count Pal Bolza (1821-1881) of Tiszakürt left his lands to his oldest son, Jozsef (1853-1940) and a large estate near the neighboring town of Szarvas to younger son Peter (1867-1947), he could not forsee that this would be the foundation of perhaps the two most impressive arboreta (Tiszakürt Arboretum and Szarvas Arboretum) not just in Hungary, but also Eastern Europe and Western Asia. With excellent potential to become nature-based educational centers, these arboreta have potential for real international value far beyond just regional interest.
Both Jozsef and Peter Bolza acquired their love of nature and gardening from their father Pal, who lived in Kürt in a beautiful, well-maintained manor house with a large garden around it. When József inherited the almost 2,000 ha of arable land, meadows and forests (and soon the manor house as well) just like his brother in Szarvas he decided to create an arboretum around the house, and set aside 19.5 ha for the purpose. It was a great help that Jozsef could order plants and exchange experiences with Péter, only a two-hour coach ride away. Jozsef also was fortunate to find an excellent head gardener, the well-educated Mihály Tompa from Transylvania. Although Tompa had never been to the West, he was able to create an English-style garden and park just by mimicing the style of the natural vegetation in the neighboring plains, where the periodically wet meadows alternate with the huge trees of the productive oak-elm-ash galleries and adjacent drier oak-ash forests. He came to appreciate the beauty of the land where forest and grassland naturally intermingled and tried to recreate and preserve that in his gardening. He removed vegetation around selected specimens and maintained the lawn with widely-spaced exotic specimens and flowering shrubs.  He either left the forest just as it was or planted new areas with native trees, creating narrow paths leading into the forest interior that were ornamented with groups of shade tolerant evergreens.
Although Jozsef introduced exotic trees and ornamental shrubs in fairly large numbers, he, as well as Peter, never overwhelmed the open views in the landscape by over-planting the clearings and forest margins with strikingly strange forms or unnatural colors.  Starting at a young age, he spent 60 years (1879-1941) creating the park, fortunately not living to see his house and beautiful estate later destroyed.

The Bolza period of the Tisza valley showed that the climatic conditions were much less hostile to woody plants than was supposed, for both native and exotic trees grow vigorously. American Red and Scarlet oaks, sensitive to the chalk in most parts of Hungary, as well as Mediterranean and American plane trees, perform well here, achieving great growth and becoming large just like in their native regions. Jozsef's excellent sense of the beauty and habitat requirements of the trees is shown by the many great specimens, including one of the best Scarlet Oak (Quercus coccinea) of Central Europe and sycamores (Platanus) already up to 2 m in diameter. By 1971, when the arboretum was 100 years old, the largest of the planted trees had reached 6 m in girth at the base, and a Metasequoia planted as recently as 1976 has reached 1.5 m dbh and 30 m in height. Contradicting the theory that the region was a cold steppe where the closed woody vegetation is climatically restricted, this is a wine region, and tender trees such as Chinese Silk Tree (Albizia), cedars (Cedrus), Smoke Tree (Cotinus) and European Holly (Ilex) can be grown here. Even rhododendrons burst into bloom along the forest paths (a real surprise considering that rhododendrons had never been tried on the Hungarian Plain).  Unlike the drier and colder open forest regions further east, the trees grow huge and many evergreens flourish here.

The decline and the recovery

Both the entire 20 room manor house and the garden suffered during World War II, when once again Europe did its best to destroy as much of what it had of value as it possibly could, a sad step before realizing the common interests of a United Europe. During the Communist period, a military station occupied the fine imperial interior of the building and the family members became class enemies and were disgraced. The architectural treasures and furnishings of the interior completely vanished within days. Miscellaneous communist-socialist government organizations and cooperative headquarters moved inside the almost empty walls. The building was finally converted into an orphans home, and the white-painted doors and walls completed the "socialization" of the building. The highly praised stately home was separated from the park by a wire fence and later a massive brick wall.
While the fate of the manor house was sealed, the splendor of the park was destroyed as well. During war time many of the large specimens were cut down for various needs and the local council of the communist party opened the park for the so called "worker class", creating an open-air theatre and village football field in the center of the park while other parts were abandoned, the empty goals and worn grass patches ruining what once were the finest views.
Local teachers and conservation officers from the Nature Conservation Bureau, led by Jozsef Papp, fought in the frontline to save what remained of the park and the house, but for a long time in vain. Their perseverance, however, finally paid off in 1957 when the park was locally declared a protected land. In 1961 a decree ensured the preserve, and finally in 1971 it was raised to the status of protected land at the county level. In 1975 the state added almost 20 ha of land to the eastern end of the Arboretum and, with Alajos Bauecker, the head curator of the Arboretum in Szarvas, a plan was made and implemented in the then typical systematic order. The plants, however, mostly grew poorly in this arrangement and suffered in the heavy sage-covered dry soil. A new plan formed in 1987 by Dr. Zsolt Debreczy at the Natural History Museum suggested a large eastward extension of the park with wide landscaped grassy meadows alternating with native oak forest. The idea was in many ways a continuation of Bolza's-to recreate the natural landscape of the Tisza region as still found in some areas, in which meadows and grasslands alternated with highly productive forests. Horticulturist Laszlo Talas, who succeeded his father Istvan Talas as head-gardener and curator of the living collection, supported the idea and successfully convinced the County Government to increase the park on a large scale and convert it to a dendrological collection, with an almost limitless possibility of introducing plants which tolerate the climate.
The new land also allowed the extension of the collection while saving the harmonious view of the Old Park from new plantings. In 1987, the new plan was completed with the collaboration of Dr. Istvan Racz, a young colleague of Dr. Debreczy, and as early as 1988-1989 the oak plantation was completed. The new forest zone is by now 9 m high and when seeing the wide meadows surrounded by the young forests already emerging, one feels that the dream born some fifteen years before is gradually unfolding to reality. The roots of the trees have reached the (unfortunately, already much deeper) water table and the shade provided along with the highly productive organic forest litter is gradually changing the soil and the microclimate in a direction which will soon open a new era in the arboretum.