The Copper Beech South of the Vreugd en Rust Koepel

Nearly all of a mature beech's roots sit in the top half metre of soil, spread about as wide as the crown reaches. Stand under this one and you are standing on it. That shallow plate is why old beeches in well used parks tend to die of nothing more dramatic than feet: the ground packs down, air stops reaching the roots, and a tree that has held on for nearly two centuries loses to a shortcut worn across the grass. Anyone looking after a park beech worries about the soil long before the branches. This is the southern of the two copper beeches at koepel number one in Park Vreugd en Rust. The national register gives it a planting date somewhere between 1830 and 1840, so roughly 190 years, and that band is an estimate of when it went in rather than a count of rings. The register is the only source that puts any number on it. Come in a mast year and you will hear the tree before you look at it. Beech drops its nuts in irregular gluts rather than evenly, and after a heavy one the spiky husks lie thick enough underfoot to crunch. The park is in Voorburg, part of Leidschendam-Voorburg, a short ride east of The Hague rather than a walk within it.