The Oisterwijk Marialinde has been voted Tree of the Year. The tree is 650 years old and received more than 7,000 votes in the election. It is located on De Lind, just behind the old town hall of Oisterwijk.
Forest ranger Frans Kapteijns campaigned tirelessly for the tree in his hometown. And with success. He is overjoyed with first place. “I chased, almost stalked, a huge number of people to vote for the tree. But the tree really deserves the prize. When you drive through Oisterwijk, you always see him.”
Umbrella shape
It is a bit difficult to say exactly how old the Marialinde is, because lime trees always produce new trees from the inside. So it has been renewed a number of times in all these years. But according to the organization of the Tree of the Year Election, SBNL Nature Fund, the Marialinde was already mentioned in 1388 in old documents. In the past, justice was often held under a lime tree, which would have been quite possible with this lime tree given the umbrella shape and the benches under the tree.
Frans Kapteijns believes it is important that the tree gets the honor it deserves. “It is good that the mayor and aldermen of Oisterwijk are also told how important trees are, because that is not always clear.” Because the Marialinde is the Dutch Tree of the Year, it automatically becomes the entry for the European tree of the year election.
Beauty pageant
Brabant has won beauty pageants for trees before. The Ulvenhout cuddly oak became the first Dutch Tree of the Year in 2018. The following year it was the Witches Tree in Bladel. And in 2020, Moeierboom from Etten-Leur won the competition. We do not yet have the most beautiful tree in Europe in Brabant. But the Marialinde in Oisterwijk can still make up for that.
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