The Copper Beech West of the Arentsburg Pond

Landscape gardeners put copper beeches beside water deliberately. A purple crown reads nearly black against a pond, doubles itself in the reflection and does the job of a monument in a garden that has none, which is why nineteenth century Dutch parks are full of them standing precisely where this one stands. It holds the west bank of the pond in Park Arentsburg, and a second copper beech of the same era holds the east. The national register puts the planting between 1830 and 1840, so roughly 190 years, from an estimate of when it went in rather than a count of rings. That register is the only source that dates the tree at all, which is worth knowing before anyone repeats the number as a fact. Beech is the species Dutch tree officers now worry about most. The roots are shallow, the tree evolved for summers with reliable rain, and the dry ones of the past decade have thinned crowns and killed limbs in parks across the country. A tree with a pond within reach of its root plate is better placed than most to keep going. Park Arentsburg lies in Voorburg, in the municipality of Leidschendam-Voorburg. That is east of The Hague and outside it, so treat this as a short trip out rather than a city walk.