What is the oldest tree in Sittard-Geleen?

The oldest tree in Sittard-Geleen is the Red Oak of Geleen-Oost Station, which the national tree register bands to a planting around 1870, roughly 160 years old, tied with a copper beech in the Jardin d'Isabelle in Sittard.

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 throughout, so every entry ships flagged rather than confirmed. Geleen's two trees are a red oak by the station, an American species that turns brick red in October, and an oak on Rijksweg Noord whose trunk runs four and a half metres round, standing in the path of a planned housing development the register's own surveyor hopes will spare it. Sittard's is a copper beech in the Jardin d'Isabelle, a historic town garden where the register says the poet Charles Beltjens once met his beloved. An ash of the same age stood beside it until a storm in 2010, and a young ash now grows in its place. Where a pin is marked approximate, we know the site and not the exact trunk.

Read the full story of The Red Oak of Geleen-Oost Station, or see all 3 remarkable ancient trees in Sittard-Geleen.

One of Sittard-Geleen's trees also appears in Autumn Worth the Trip.

Over 3,600 old trees worth the walk

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