Mortimer — The man behind Taitua Arboretum
When in 1972 dendrologists John Mortimer and his wife Bunny started planting shade trees as shelter for their animals on part of the family farm Westlands, just outside Hamilton on the Raglan road, there was no intention to turn their paddocks into an arboretum.
What they were after was something far less ambitious – more birds and bees and happier livestock.
In fact, they did not plan too much at all and took a reasonably random ‘‘his and hers’’ approach to planting specimen trees, both choosing species they preferred and planting out certain areas.
‘‘If I ordered a whole bunch of trees, I could put them where I liked, and if John ordered a bunch of trees he could put them where he liked,’’ Bunny said.
‘‘It worked so well – John had a collection of conifers, and I had a selection of oaks and other species.’’
After 16 years they were delighted to hear a tui at Taitua.
In some way the arboretum had its start when they made the 45-hectare Westlands golf course in 1968. John and Bunny became intrigued by trees when the course architect said they needed specimens of a certain height with leaves that would not get stuck in the mower.
At adjoining Taitua where they lived, hundreds of trees were planted and paths developed, and, at the suggestion of visiting farm foresters, the couple began to hold the occasional open day.
The open days were successful – so successful that people were happy to pay.
Bunny and John never dreamed their 20-hectare property would ultimately be visited by 102,000 people in a single year.
A quiet and unassuming man, John served in Bougainville during the war, later joining the British colonial service and living in Uganda for seven years.
While home on leave he met Bunny and they married in 1957.
Later, with a large family to support, John bought a 105-hectare hill farm, planting Pinus radiata for future income and covenanting 40 hectares of native bush with the QEII National Trust.
Today visitors to Taitua come for the unstructured beauty of the area, the soaring Californian redwoods, open pastures and woodland gardens, the dark brown Rotopara¯ one (named for English landscaper Capability Brown) and the undulating pathways.
Recently, based on users’ reviews, the arboretum was awarded a certificate of excellence by influential online travel website Trip Advisor.
In 1995 John and Bunny both received civic awards and later Queen’s Service Medals for their services to the public.
It was John’s idea, in 1997, after the couple had planted more than 1500 species of trees and shrubs, to gift the arboretum to Hamilton.
It formally opened to the public for visits in 2004.
‘‘We’d got to the stage where we were getting pretty old, and we weren’t sure what the answer should be,’’ John told a council employee some years back.
‘‘Clearly the number of people coming to look at the place was increasing.’’
Even then, the act of generosity was not easy.
‘‘It took us three years to get the council to take it on.
Trying to get rid of something is extremely difficult because they think ‘there’s a bit of a hitch in there somewhere’… they had to make sure that long term it was worthwhile, and that they could afford it, but the council has been wonderful really,’’ John told Radio New Zealand in 2013.
The arboretum is now watched over by the Taitua Advisory Group and the city’s gardeners, landscapers and arborists.
Hamilton deputy mayor Martin Gallagher said the gift to the city was significant and hugely generous.
‘‘The city owes John and Bunny a huge debt of gratitude. Their legacy will live on for many generations to come.’’
A second legacy is St Paul’s Collegiate Tihoi Venture School which John helped establish, according to headmaster Grant Lander.
‘‘John’s shining achievement – the crucial thing for us as a school really – was the establishment of the Tihoi Venture School. John and the headmaster at the time, Tony Hart, and a group of staff went around the North Island from Great Barrier through Thames and Raglan looking at potential venues.
‘‘John found the old timber mill village at Tihoi, which had closed.
‘‘He ran a fundraising campaign to raise $200,000 – a lot of money back then – to buy Tihoi in 1976.
‘‘A lot of the houses had been sold off individually and John went around to all the owners and persuaded them to sell them back to him.
‘‘Next year is the 40th anniversary of Tihoi and I know John would have loved to be there.’’
One of the Tihoi buildings is named Mortimer House.
John served on the Waikato Anglican College Trust Board for just under two decades, beginning in 1963, a few years after St Paul’s started. He was chairman of the board from 1973 to 1977.
He began a heating and ventilating company; joined the Lions Club where he introduced a charitable trust fund which added enormous funds to the coffers over three years; was active on the local drainage board; was a member of the manufacturers’ association; a trustee of several charitable trusts and a budget advisor to a needy family; was secretary of one school and treasurer of another; raised funds for his parish church; and sponsored children in Greece and Korea.
John would have been happy to be described as a practising farm forester. He was, after all, an ex-national president of the New Zealand Farm Forestry Association and had won the Farm Forester of the Year award.
John and Bunny published three books on trees: Trees for the New Zealand Countryside (reprinted six times); Shelter and Shade: Creating a Healthy and Profitable Environment for your Livestock; and Trees and their Bark. John also wrote a small book A Selection of Alternative Timbers.
After gifting the arboretum the Mortimers continued to visit Taitua occasionally to keep in touch.
John told City News that whenever they visited, although they were no longer involved in pruning and weeding, ‘‘it is always still very positive and we feel joy’’.
The couple retired in 2000 to Rotokauri, fittingly to an environmentally friendly home constructed of rammed earth and wood, with solar heating, and a rainwater tank.
The ardent conservationists did not believe in cutting down native trees, so the only native wood is rimu recycled from a horse stud.
Otherwise, the front doors are from stockyards in Taupiri, complete with lichen. The kitchen cupboards are from a plane tree felled when the railway line at Ruakura was electrified. The 7m-long beam in the lounge was once a power pole. And the big, weathered lintels above the doors are from an old railway bridge at Nga¯ ruawa¯ hia and a coal mine near Huntly.
The couple moved to a retirement village in Te Rapa after John had serious health problems.
Writing for the New Zealand Tree Grower in 1984 John said that for far too long it had been unthinkable for planters to consider planting trees that could not be felled during their working life.
‘‘We must wean people away from this concept and encourage the planting of longer rotation hardwoods and not worry if they can be turned into profit during our children’s lifetime or even our grandchildren’s.’’
More than 40 years on, Taitua Arboretum shows John was as good as his word. A celebration of John’s life will be held at the Chapel of Christ the King, St Paul’s Collegiate School, Hamilton, at 11.30am on Friday, June 29. The family will dress to celebrate John’s life and invite those attending to do so too.
John is survived by Bunny, their nine children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
- Charles Riddle
❚ A Life Story tells of a New Zealander who helped to shape the Waikato community. If you know of someone whose life story should be told, please email Charles.Riddle@wintec.ac.nz