The Oak of the Castle Park

The oldest of the four survivors in the castle grounds, and the one most likely to outlast the rest by centuries. It was planted between 1880 and 1890, when Kasteel Helmond was still a private house sitting in a large landscape park, four decades before the sale that led to most of that park disappearing. A native oak in a nineteenth century park was not the fashionable choice; the fashion was for silver maples, copper beeches and conifers from other continents, all of which are also on this page. Oak was the sober option, planted by somebody thinking further ahead than their own lifetime. That turned out to be the right call. Pedunculate oak routinely reaches four hundred years in this country. The silver maple beside it will be lucky to see two hundred. A castle that has stood for nearly seven centuries with an oak that might manage half of that is a decent pairing, and it is the sort of arithmetic that only becomes visible when you know the numbers. Acorns on long stalks in October, and a great many of them on a tree with this much room.