The Ash of Kleverlaan

The general cemetery on the Kleverlaan is where Haarlem keeps its best trees, and this ash is one of the reasons guided tree walks stop here at all. It stands in the oldest section, on the south side, at a bend in the path with graves gathered close around its roots. The national register of monumental trees puts its planting somewhere between 1870 and 1880, so it is roughly 140 to 155 years old, and that band is as precise as the record allows. Ash rarely gets to be the tree people notice. It has no autumn colour worth the name, the bark stays grey and quiet, and the leaves drop early and more or less all at once. What it has instead is height and a light, open crown that lets the grass grow right up to the trunk, and after a century and a half over the same graves this one has plenty of both. The register is the only source that names this particular tree, which is why it is listed here with its dates attributed rather than asserted; the cemetery's beeches, cedar, walnut and yew are far better documented than its ash. If you know when it went in, or who planted it, tell us. It stands about a hundred metres from the Kleverlaan yew, so the two make one stop rather than two.