De Kasteelheer and 49 other favorite trees in the Netherlands

Suzy was the name of the Jewish girl from Amsterdam who hid in a tree for whole days during the Second World War. She was invisible through the dense foliage. She could read in the tree, she studied there, she was ‘relieved’ as the inhabitants of the hiding place said at the time.

The lime tree stands in a flowery garden in Eefde, Gelderland, and has been given the name Safe Lucky Bringer because of Suzy’s story. It is also one of the trees that were nominated last year for the National Trees Top 50, issued by the National Tree Bank company on the occasion of the 50th anniversary. It was established in 1972 to save monumental, valuable trees that were in danger of disappearing due to increasing urbanization or road construction. People could nominate a tree for a place in the ranking, which was compiled by experts. People could then vote for those trees, and a jury of experts chose a Top 5 on that basis.

Those five trees will receive as a reward, starting this spring, lifelong care from Terra Nostra; this sister company of the Bomenbank is responsible for the substantive registration of the fifteen thousand monumental trees in the Netherlands, draws up management plans and conducts research into trees and soil.

In the ranking, the National Tree Bank was mainly interested in the stories behind the trees. Everyone could choose a tree from their own garden or in the public space and write a suitable story. Names such as Lord of the Castle, Weeping Beuke, Two Centuries of Pride, The Great Giant Among Poor Women, Liberty Tree, Drunken Little Birds Mulberry Tree, Liberty Tree, The Millennial Oak, The Love Linden, Great-Great-Great-Grandmother’s Apple Tree, Immovable Wingnut or The Tree That Has Everything survived (in the heart of Rotterdam). Some already had a name, such as the Jan Wolkers Tree in Oegstgeest, a pedunculate oak and the author’s favorite tree, and the Van Gogh Prieellinde in Zweeloo.

Experts from Terra Nostra visited all registered trees and looked at aspects such as the iconic character, cultural-historical and ecological value, size, height, age and rarity.

The fifty chosen ones are on the site of the National Tree Bank with photo, the accompanying story, historical background and tree-related explanation; they offer a sample of the wealth of trees in the Netherlands.

Take De Twaalf Apostelenboom at the cemetery of Lutten in Overijssel. Age: 170 years. The tree “watches over the souls of the dead and gives the cemetery a sacred atmosphere,” according to the submitted story. And the 167-year-old Lijnbaan plane tree on Coolsingel in Rotterdam was “miraculously still standing after the bombs and the scorching conflagration while the whole city lay in smithereens”, as one contributor describes.

The jury noticed that ‘solitary trees were especially appreciated’, says forest ranger Hanne Tersmette-Strijland over the phone. “Trees in cemeteries, in residential areas or near a school are loved. People see those trees every day, they bond with them.” Jury member and ecologist Nadina Galle emphasizes the importance of old trees in the city, such as the plane trees from 1865 in the Leidsebosje in Amsterdam. According to her, these are rightly nominated: “For me, trees like these form the bridge between past and future. A mature tree has seen so much, experienced so much, it is a living being that breathes and captures our imagination.”

NRC highlight three trees, chosen for their ecological, personal or cultural-historical value.

1 Lord of the castle

One of the trees in the top 5 is the lord of the castle, a monumental red-leaved beech at Kasteel Oud Bijsterveld in Oirschot. It is a tree like a natural phenomenon, a cathedral of columns and branches, probably 195 years old. It was planted by monastics “and they had only one requirement,” says tree expert Henry Kuppen of Terra Nostra. “The tree had to be able to do its thing in the monastery yard. Well, that’s happened.”

Kuppen has visited all 100 registered trees, but this red-leaved beech (Fagus sylvatica ‘Purpurea’) amazed him. It reaches 32 meters in height, has a trunk circumference of six meters and a crown area of ​​804 square meters. Kuppen has been in the business for forty years: “A diseased tree used to be cut down, but in the urban environment we now try to let trees live as long as possible with a management plan. My eyes were opened when 35 years ago people chained themselves to trees in Amelisweerd to protest against logging – and recently again, in the same place.”

For Kuppen, trees are “the main component of our existence,” he says. “Suppose you no longer hear the rustling of leaves, you no longer see the coloring from spring green to autumn gold, you no longer smell the scent of lime blossom. Without trees you would lose your connection with nature.”

Talk to Kuppen and a tree is not just a tree. He points to a special phenomenon of the Lord of the Castle: the low-hanging branches touch the ground, where they take root again, and new shoots emerge from those roots. This is how the tree seems to walk: “In any case, it makes itself immortal, for the young shoots run away from the main trunk and establish new trees. That is only possible if we observe a golden rule: give trees freedom, give them space.”

2 Safe good luck charm

This linden (Tilia) is 150 years old and stands in the backyard of a house in Eefde. It was placed in the top 5 for several reasons. The current resident Ton Rotteveel registered the tree because of the role it played for Suzy in hiding during the Second World War. She survived the war and later went to work in psychiatric care with her husband.

“A lime tree in the yard brings good luck, that is an old saying,” he says. My grandparents came to live here in 1933. The family had to remove the tree, but my grandmother refused, it is a lucky tree.”

During the war, many people in hiding lived in the house, says Rotteveel, all in separate rooms and cupboards with double doors. For each of them the tree had a comforting meaning because of the light green in spring, the sound of rain on the leaves. Thanks to its huge crown, it has great value in times of climate change: it provides cooling in hot dry summers, it stores CO₂ traps particulate matter and produces oxygen. The jury calls the Safe Lucky Bringer a “typical Dutch tree with an impressive history”.

3 Van Gogh Bower lime tree

“Tones of black in the wet trunks, contrasting with golden showers of swirling, swarming autumn leaves.” Vincent van Gogh wrote this to his brother Theo on 1 November 1883 during his visit to Drenthe. That day, the painter drove from Nieuw-Amsterdam to Zweeloo, where he made sketches of the reformed church and of a spinning woman, among other things. He hoped to meet the German painter Max Liebermann, but the two missed each other. Van Gogh had heard of an apple orchard and bleach field, located behind the village inn of Jan Mensingh and his sister Lammechien. On the painting Bleekveld in Zweeloo (1882) Liebermann depicts a common linden (Tilia x europaea ), the same one that Van Gogh would also draw, in 1883. His drawing in pencil with brown ink is called Orchard.

The truncated lime tree, four meters high, is at least 163 years old and is still there, in the yard behind Bistro Tante Sweel on the Hoofdstraat. It didn’t make it to the Trees Top 5, it only got two votes, although its cultural-historical significance is great. Unfortunately, he cannot count on tree care. The painter Kees Verweij, who lives in Zweeloo, recited the tree; he often painted it.

According to tree expert Kuppen, it is a “former tree of the highest class”. And it hurts him, he says, to see a tree with this history lost in a sidewalk. He recently wrote a blog about the lime tree as a ‘living work of art’. He calls the place where the tree stands “desolate”, sandwiched between the bistro itself and a dark hedge of conifers. The tree is visible from the terrace of the bistro. Kuppen: “It would be great if you could sit in the shadow of this cultural-historical work of art.” Last summer it was adorned with a beautiful, light green canopy formed by two- and three-year-old shoots.

Sometime around 1950, the linden tree survived the explosion of a gas cylinder that stood directly below it. It was also pruned into an arbor shape even in Van Gogh’s time, as can be seen from the scaffolding he drew under the branches. Because it has always been maintained as a natural parasol, the linden developed a characteristic dome-shaped crown, says Kuppen: “In the places where it is knotted, beautiful, jagged ends form on the branches, in winter they look like clogs.”