What is the oldest tree in Hamburg?
The oldest tree on this page is the Hollow Oak of Jenischpark, a pedunculate oak in the public park above the Elbe at Othmarschen, and its age is an estimate rather than a record. Nobody wrote down when it was planted. German arboriculture dates a tree like this from its trunk instead, and at 8.30 metres round it comes out at about 1600 give or take fifty years, so roughly 375 to 475 years old. That girth also makes it the thickest pedunculate oak in Hamburg: it was taped in April 2020 and two independent German tree registers agree on the figure to the centimetre. It stands about 100 metres east of the Jenischhaus, free to reach, with no gate at any hour. If you know of a dated study that narrows any of these ages, tell us.
Hamburg dates most of its notable trees by measuring them rather than by consulting records, which is why nearly every age here arrives as a band rather than a number. The citywide list of marked and old trees gives a planting year with a tolerance attached, 1600 plus or minus fifty for the Jenischpark oak and 1700 plus or minus twenty for its neighbour, and the independent register at baumkunde.de agrees with the girths behind those figures to the centimetre. That agreement is the strongest cross-check available on this page. One tree escapes the estimating altogether: the plane in Planten un Blomen was put in the ground on 6 November 1821 as the first tree of Hamburg's botanical garden, so its age is known exactly, about 205 years. The pagoda tree on the Alsterufer sits between the two conventions, with the city's environment authority giving it around 150 years in an announcement of April 2026. The two oldest trees on the page stand 500 metres apart in the same park, which makes the oldest of them an afternoon rather than an expedition.
See more themed collections of remarkable trees.