A VIRTUALTOUR OF THE ARBORETUM

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We invite you to join us for a virtual walk along the paths of the "Old Park". In real time, the walk would take about an hour. If you come to the arboretum and have time and interest, however, you will probably find that an entire day or more will not be enough to investigate the plants closely.

The first object of interest is the natural basin opposite the entrance to the arboretum. It is fed from an artesian well, and the medicinal, somewhat sulphurous, water is potable. It is rich in fluorine and other minerals.

The arboretum entrance is incorporated into a modern visitor center, built in the style known as "organic architecture" and completed in 2006. This is where you will find the ticket office and a gift shop selling postcards and souvenires as well as maps and guides to the arboretum.  The north wing of the visitor center is a lecture hall.

Opposite the visitor center stands an attention-grabbing woodcarving: "Niké". Her attractive shape unfolds beautifully from the trunk of a single oak, and her face radiates with a unique, secretive smile. This is the work of Csaba Vas and is perhaps the most valuable piece to emerge from the wood-carving school that operated here from 1974-1982. You will encounter several other interesting carvings as you walk through the arboretum's "Old Park".  Many of the sculptors took advantage of the natural form of trunks and branches to create images of forest creatures, while others immortalized pastoral figures from the Hungarian Plain.

There are 3.5 km of walkways in the Old Park, many of them recently paved with gray concrete bricks. We will travel only enough of this route to give you an impression of the beautiful prospects, the grand meadows surrounded by natural Peduncle Oak forests, and the many interesting shrubs that bloom and mature their fruits along the paths.

Turning left after entering the grounds, you come upon an area immediately behind the visitor center which is bordered by old Peduncled/English oaks, remnants of the original gallery forests that once dominated the flood plains. Looking to the right/south, you'll see a Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var. glauca) with a greyish hue on its needles, Baldcypress (Taxodium distichum) that shows early bloom and fall in "rusty" colors, and an (American) Eastern White Pine that sports almost horizontal branches and bright, light green foliage. In April, Purple Leaf Flowering Plums (Prunus cerasifera 'Nigra') and many other attractive shrubs catch the visitors' eyes and attention here.

As we pass under the overhanging foliage along the winding path, a carved wooden bear salutes us. The "Piping Shepherd" woodcarving on the right was made by Imre Horpácsi in 1977. The message on its back reads: "Love the trees and the flowers!" a message that echoes the park's overarching rule: Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints.

Next our tour turns right past a Baldcypress. In May evergreen and deciduous rhododendrons (Rhododendron spp.) bloom here along the sides of the canal. (Between the podzolic soils of western Hungary and the wet alluvial soils of the Plain there is a gap of several hundred kilometers where there are no rhododendrons in cultivation. They appear once again here in the arboretum--and here they bloom earlier than in the western part of the country.  Turning back to the main walkway, we cross the old canal, which once drained the high watertable of the gallery forests and swamps back to the river. Right after crossing the bridge, a good-sized London Plane Tree (Platanus × acerifolia) attracts our attention. Its white trunk contrasts with the colorful rhododendrons and the carpet of Great St-John's wort (Hypericum calycinum), a mediterranean evergreen that displays bright yellow flowers almost all year round.


Next we pass a group of firs (Abies) that includes Cilician Fir (Abies cilicica), Spanish Fir (Abies pinsapo) and Veitch Fir (Abies veitchii)-with an especially nice variant of the latter that has silvery foliage. The large Austrian Black Pine (Pinus nigra var. nigra) in this planting is more than 100 years old, and the Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) next to it can't be much younger. In April the Saucer Magnolia (Magnolia × soulangeana) and the Kobus Magnolia (Magnolia kobus) both bloom magnificently putting forth white or pink flowers before their foliage bursts forth.


To the right/south pines (Pinus), Malonyan Eastern White cedars-or arborvitaes (Thuja occidentalis 'Malonyana'), blue Colorado spruces (Picea pungens 'Glauca'), European hornbeams (Carpinus betulus) and maples (Acer spp.) lend character to the impressive panorama that dominates the middle of the arboretum. Behind you (west) as you come upon this view is a big Scarlet Oak (Quercus coccinea) and to your left is a huge London Plane (Platanus × acerifolia). In April Japanese/Yedo Flowering Cherries (Prunus yedoensis), Japanese quinces (Chaenomeles japonica) and Common pearlbushes (Exochorda racemosa) are all in bloom here, and among them are Douglas-fir and Eastern White Pine. Next to the magnificent London Plane, the eye is caught by Vilmos Koncz's "Family Tree" sculptures, based on his experiences in Tanzania.

This particular London Plane-amazing for its size and smooth, light bark-is one of the arboretum's most beautiful trees. According to old servants at the manor house, this tree was created by planting three saplings quite near to one another. With time they united to form a single tree. Its circumference at the base is 9 m, 6 m little higher up. Each of the main branches at breast height would themselves form a magnificent tree 2.5 m in diameter.

If your time is short, you can turn back to the visitor center now, but we strongly suggest you continue on with us, as there is so much more to see.

The path continues on, crossing a bridge over the canal to where the Common Ivy (Hedera helix), European Holly (Ilex aquifolium) and evergreen Cherry-laurels (Prunus laurocerasus) create an almost subtropical environment beneath the old oaks.

After about 40 m, the path opens up onto a meadow that is dominated by a Littleleaf Linden (Tilia cordata) and more conspicuously by a very large English Oak (Quercus robur) about 350 years of age. This oak is the oldest remaining witness to the oak forests that once florished here in extensive hardwood (oak-ash-elm/Quercus-Fraxinus-Ulmus) gallery forests. At the other end of the meadow, two 4 m-high carvings, "The Couple" (a symbolic man and women) by Kristóf Nagy, add scale that emphasizes the size of the oak and the space around it. Other trees on the clearing include Silver Birch (Betula pendula) and European Larch (Larix decidua). Next to the old oak are a huge Baldcypress, Eastern White pines, columnar-fastigiate English Oak (Quercus robur 'Fastigiata'), Turkey Oak (Quercus cerris), Kentucky Coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioica) from North America, Pin Oak (Quercus palustris) with nice lobed leaves, and columnar Chinese Juniper (Juniperus chinensis 'Keteeleri', also known by horticulturists as "Pyramidalis").

Keeping to the right, we cross the canal again, by yet another bridge, and the huge "triple London Plane" come into view as we pass by Japanese quinces, a Judas Tree-the mediterranean "Redbud" (Cercis siliquastrum), Hawthorns (Crataegus sp.), and Common pearlbushes.

Next to the canal is the oldest Douglas-fir in the park, and about 80 m away a vast Scarlet Oak looms into view. Its rounded crown is a good 30 meters in diameter and it dominates the landscape. Actually, this tree has already been visible from the path, but only from a distance and seen from the west.

About 40 m farther along the path we pass a small stand of native Tatarian Maple (Acer tataricum) and then arrive at the "Meadow of the Eastern Red cedars" (Juniperus virginiana). These trees were planted at the time of Count Bolza-about 120 years ago. Their trunks, with red-brown fibrous bark, are 3-4 m in circumference and their crowns are 12 m across. To the left along the path, European or Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa) and a grand European Yew (Taxus baccata) 16 m across at the crown both attract our attention.

At this point, we leave the old part of the Arboretum and enter the 43 ha extention that was added in 1975 and 1988, respectively. In the distance, ahead and to the right, are a lookout tower and a new pond that was built and landscaped in 2006. From the lookout tower, a grand view opens out over the park extension, which is marked by an extensive (native) Peduncle Oak plantation (Quercus robur) intersected by several "rays" of grassy pasture up to a kilometer in length and 20-30 m wide. This already grand view will gradually be enhanced with plantings of solitairs along the forest margins and shade plants will grace the many kilometers of trails proposed for construction throughout the forest.

If time allows, you may want to explore the park's extentions. In the first section (added in 1975) many interesting trees wait to be discovered. Most of these are already around 40 years old and are already quite sizeable. They include diverse species of oaks, the Empress Tree (Paulownia tomentosa), the Chinese Rubber Tree (Eucommia ulmoides), Mountpelier Maple (Acer monspessulanum) which is native as close to here as the Danube Gorge at Kazan Pass, white fir (Abies concolor), monotypic Persian Ironwood or Persiatree (Parrotia persica) which shows off its red foliage in autumn, and Dawn-Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). At this latter tree, please note the decussate arrangement of the leaves.  This, and its cones which fall with the long stalk attached, are what helped distinguish it from Baldcypress (with spiral order and disintegrating cones) at discovery. A Dawn-Redwood fossil was first found in 1938 in Japan and was described (there) in 1941. That same year still-living trees of the species (with yet unknown identity) were found in the Sichuan-Hubei region of Central China, although their identity was still unknown. It thrives well in the deep fluvial deposit soils (entisols) of the Tisza region and our specimen has reached 18 m in height and 1,8 m in circumference at base (CBH) since it was planted in 1970. Behind the Dawn-Redwood is a stand of Western redcedars (Thuja plicata), to the left of which is a mixed group of conifers-Austrian Pine, Western redcedars, Sitka Spruce (Picea sitchensis), Eastern Hemlock (Tsuga canadensis), and Chinese Mahogany or Toona (Cedrela sinensis), which is similar to the Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) which ornaments many gardens and naturalize easily.

To the right along the path you can see a stand of white-barked London Plane trees near the former manor house of the Bolza family. The house is separated from the arboretum by a wall of plants, including many beautiful evergreens such as European Holly, Chinese barberries (Berberis sp.), and Leatherleaf Wayfaring trees (Viburnum rhytidophyllum). Proceeding west on the path, you pass a group of Hungarian lilacs (Syringa josikaea), which (contrasting the common S. vulgaris in spring) flower in June. The left turn before the Hungarian lilacs leads uphill to the the Calvinist church, which offers a nice view of the arboretum's entrance area and the small pond with the impressive Baldcypress whose circumference measures 3 m at breast height, and 4.3 m at the base.

After climbing the slope for a view we descend and continue northward, back toward the visitor center. The old European Yew, and the "Meadow of the Eastern Redcedars" come into view again, this time from a different perspective. Looking to the left here, and one of the arboretum's most beautiful panoramas is revealed-the view from the big Scarlet Oak toward the even bigger "triple London Plane".


In the distance, toward the main entrance, we can glimpse a big Baldcypress, another Dawn redwood and a young but well-grown Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum). The path cuts sharply to the right here revealing a white flowering Kobus Magnolia, a Yellow Poplar or "Tuliptree" (Liriodendron tulipifera), which is adorned with greenish-yellow tulip-shaped flowers in May, and a lovely Maidenhair Tree (Ginkgo biloba), whose fan-shaped leaves are unique among higher plants. Several meters farther along a Common Sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus) catches the eye. It blooms from May through July, and its purplish-red flowers have a spicy fragrance reminiscent of cider or sour apples.

Our park tour ends as we once again approach the visitor center. Upon reaching the impressing Baldcypress near the center, it is worth turning around to take a last, admiring look at the exquisite view that opens onto the water and note how beautifully the tree's fine foliage frames the reflected image of the baroque church.