Editor’s note and 2020 update: Trompenburg Arboretum has now reopened post lock-down. However, you have to book a spot online, on their website. This also applies to MuseumKaart holders. Once you’re inside the arboretum, you can stay as long as you want. The tea house is also open and observing special hygiene rules.
Where would you choose to spend a sweltering August afternoon?
The beach? Too crowded.
Strolling downtown? Too hard to breath.
The woods? We’re with you on that, but in this case it was too far away.
An arboretum? Now we’re talking.
We love to explore open-air tree museums – not the Joni Mitchell kind – so when we had an afternoon carefully earmarked for relaxing, we headed to Trompenburg arboretum, close to the Rotterdam city center.
Trompenburg is one of those places that doesn’t show up very high on the “things to do in Rotterdam” list, so we didn’t know what to expect. Which, in this case, was a good thing. We were pleasantly surprised by this park and its collections.
Here are a few tips you should know before you visit Trompenburg.
3 Things to KNOW when You Visit Trompenburg Arboretum in Rotterdam
+ Trompenburg is a short tram ride away from Rotterdam city center. It may get a bit tricky to orient yourself once you’re off the tram (stop name: Woudenstein), so as you get off, just walk towards the back of the tram, turn right and cross the street. As you walk down the narrow downhill alley, you’ll see the parking lot and the sign for the garden.
+ Trompenburg Gardens and Arboretum lies on historic ground. In the late Middle Ages, it was a swamp adjacent to the village of Cralingen (now a neighborhood in Rotterdam). Once dykes were erected, the marsh was used as a pasture and then incorporated as part of a farm.
The Van Hoey Smith clan, a prominent Dutch family in the shipping industry, had settled on the land in 1859. The family was the first to plant an arboretum on the grounds in 1928, while they were still using it as a permanent residence. Since 1958, the garden has been administered by the Trompenburg Arboretum Foundation and 100 percent privately financed through admission, donations and event hosting.
+ The garden contains about 4000 different types of trees, shrubs and perennials, with extensive collections of hostas, rhododendrons and cacti. In the summer, there are usually temporary exhibits. The highlight of our visit was the begoniamania show that Trompenburg hosted for three months this summer.
3 Things to SEE when You Visit Trompenburg Arboretum in Rotterdam
+ The succulent and cacti greenhouse. Hidden all the way in the back of the park, the succulent greenhouse is as impressive as it is packed.
In recent years, Dick van Hoey Smith spent a lot of time on his collection of succulents . In the greenhouse of Trompenburg Tuinen & Arboretum , as the Arboretum Trompenburg has been called for a few years, he had, among other things, the Mammillaria spinosissima , which he had received from his grandmother when he was ten years old, and which he has cared for for almost eighty years.
+ The mature tree collection. This is an arboretum, after all, so you should take advantage of your visit to have a look at these really old trees. Some of these trees date back to the 1870s: the bald cypress (Taxodium distichum), the giant tree of life (Thuja plicata ), the Dutch ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) and an old yew tree (Taxus baccata).
+ The rhododendron collection. Trompenburg is home to around 700 different rhododendrons, and this impressive feat brings visitors in droves in the spring and early summer months. The flowering starts in February and reaches its peak in May.
3 Things to DO when You Visit Trompenburg Arboretum in Rotterdam
+ Take some pictures on the little white bridges. Trompenburg is peppered with small bridges that cross the canals. The lush green background makes perfect picture spots easy to find.
+ Find the waterfall. Behind the wildflower meadow, all the way in the back of the garden, you can sit and rest or read a book by an enchanting waterfall. It’s not an easy-to-find spot, but once you’ve discovered it, you won’t want to leave.
+ Have cake and tea. I don’t know about you, but my world is powered by cake and tea (with some forays into pour-over coffee, for good measure). So it’s no wonder I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to satisfy my sweet-tooth cravings. And I bought some tea for home, too!
And if you’re still not convinced that Trompenburg is definitely worth a visit, that’s what the pictures are for.
More botanical garden guides this way:
Visit Phipps Botanical Garden in Pittsburgh, USA
Visit Leiden Botanical Garden, the Netherlands
Visit Keukenhof Tulip Garden, the Netherlands
Visit Bonn Botanical Garden, Germany
Visit Cologne Botanical Garden, Germany
Visit Delft Botanical Garden, Netherlands
