The Weeping Willow behind Alcmaria

The park is named after a victory, the monument was raised in 1876, and the tree behind it weeps. Somebody enjoyed that. The Victoriepark dates from 1822, when the North Holland Canal was dug and the city moat between the Friesepoort and the Waterpoort was filled in. The design is probably by J. D. Zocher, of the same family as the man who reworked the bastions. The Victory monument went up in 1876, and in 1903 Leonard Springer laid out the park as it is now. The willow is from roughly that Springer period, banded 1900 to 1910. Weeping willow is one of the oldest ornamentals in cultivation and almost every one in Europe is a clone, propagated from cuttings for centuries, because the trees planted here are nearly all female and set no viable seed. A willow twig will root in a bucket of water, which is how a single tree became a continent's worth. A hundred and twenty is old for the species. Go in March, when the branches turn yellow-green before the leaves come and the whole tree lights up for a fortnight.