He has received national and international recognition for his life’s work, including the 2010 Ron Flook Award for outstanding service to the care of trees and the arboriculture industry, and a lifetime service award in 2012 from the International Oak Society for his dedication to the cultivation of Mexican oaks.
In 2015, he was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s Veitch Memorial Medal for “outstanding contributions to the advancement of the science of horticulture”.
Prestigious medalOnly five New Zealanders have received the prestigious medal, including Eastwoodhill founder William Douglas Cook (1965), the man who inspired Mr Berry to create an arboretum himself.
As a young man he quickly developed a fascination with different types of trees, especially after he took over Abbotsford Station around 1950.
He became a regular visitor of Eastwoodhill Arboretum, New Zealand’s national arboretum, and received valuable advice from Mr Cook.
After Mr Cook died in 1971, Mr Berry began the immense task of cataloguing Eastwoodhill’s trees, one day a week over a year.
One of his fondest achievements was introducing Mexican oaks to New Zealand. Mexico has more native oak species growing in its mountainous regions than any other country.
Mr Berry travelled there in 1981 on a tour with the International Dendrology Society, returning with a variety of oak seeds.
“You could not do that any more,” he says. “I found they grew well here. Now they have been spread all over the country.”
In 1984, his niece Diane Playle and her husband Kevin took over the stock side of the station, leaving Mr Berry to concentrate on the arboretum.
Renamed Hackfalls ArboretumIt was renamed Hackfalls Arboretum after Hackfalls Wood in Yorkshire, England, where the Berry family originally lived.
In 1990, he married English horticulturalist Lady Anne Palmer and the two continued to work on the arboretum together.
Apart from feeling “a little wobbly”, Mr Berry says he is in good health. His latest achievement has been writing a book cataloguing all of the plants at Hackfalls.
“Writing the book has been wonderful. It has been my occupation over the past six years since leaving Hackfalls. I would like to thank Pat and Nick Seymour, who gave me a lot of help putting it together.”
Lady Anne, who will celebrate her own centenary in three years, says it is very important to keep their minds active at their ages.
The couple are looking forward to having a nice lunch with a group of family and friends to mark the occasion. This week Mr Berry received cards from Queen Elizabeth, Prime Minister John Key and Conservation Minister Maggie Barry, among others, congratulating him on reaching the milestone and his life’s work.
