What is the oldest tree in Haarlemmermeer?
The oldest tree in Haarlemmermeer is the London Plane of Hoofddorp, registered to a planting around 1885, roughly 140 years old. It grows on municipal ground at the corner of the Hoofdweg and the Manegelaan, in front of a notary's office, predating both the office and most of the street around it.
Ages here come from the Landelijk Register Monumentale Bomen, which records a planting decade rather than a year, so every figure on this page is a band. The register is the single source for all eight trees, so every entry ships flagged rather than confirmed. Three stand together on the Hoofdweg in Nieuw-Vennep, a farm road and a churchyard; the other five spread through Hoofddorp, Vijfhuizen and Badhoevedorp, villages within the same municipality rather than one walkable city. All of them grow on ground that was open water until three steam pumping engines drained the Haarlemmermeer between 1849 and 1852, which is why nothing here predates the mid nineteenth century: the whole polder is younger than most Dutch town centres. One tree, a roadside maple in Badhoevedorp, stands on private land and can only be seen from the street, never approached, and the register says so plainly. Where a pin is marked approximate, we know the site and not the exact trunk.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.