The Garfield Park Zelkova

"Looking pretty good!" is not the language anyone expects from a government database, but it is what the city arborist wrote about this zelkova in September 2025. It is also an understatement. In Garfield Park, a few minutes' walk south of the Capitol, this is the largest Japanese zelkova in Washington's inventory of street and park trees. The trunk measures about 130 centimetres across at chest height, roughly 4.1 metres round. Two other zelkovas stand within twenty metres of it, and they are about 40 and 47 centimetres across, so the old tree has well over twice their width. Laser survey fields in the record give it a crown about 19 metres tall, covering some 340 square metres of the park. Zelkova is an East Asian relative of the elm, with the same vase of upswept branches, and in Japan the oldest ones are temple trees many centuries old. This one makes no such claim. The city's record gives no planting date, and nobody has dated it. If you know when Garfield Park's zelkovas were planted, tell us. Capitol South Metro is about 500 metres away. The big elm on East Capitol Street and the Olmsted tuliptree on the Capitol grounds make this an easy three-tree loop around Capitol Hill.