Heart of the Garden

Heart of the Garden is a magnificent copper beech (Fagus sylvatica purpurea) in Niemcza, south-western Poland. Known locally as Serce Ogrodu, it’s the current (2024) European Tree of the Year.

Standing a modest 12m high, Heart’s oddly shaped trunk is extremely thick at over 4m. For context, common beeches typically grow 25-35m high (max. 50m) and 1.5m wide (max. 3m).

As well as its trunk, Heart’s purple leaves and long, reaching branches are what make it so distinctive. Its canopy is as wide as 40m, albeit aided by wooden supports.

This champion tree is 180-200 years old, meaning it was planted when Poland was part of the Kingdom of Prussia. Today it’s part of the Botanical Garden of the University of Wrocław and a popular attraction visited by 130,000 people annually.

European beeches typically live for up to 300 years, making Heart middle-aged. It’s fortunate to be recovering from a fungal infection, following arborist intervention in the form of a chainsaw and new soil.

Cover photo by Marcin Kopij.

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Heart of the Garden is an award-winning copper beech (Fagus sylvatica purpurea) in the Botanical Gardens of the University of Wrocław in Niemcza, south-western Poland.

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Copper (purple) beech is a mutation of common beech (Fagus sylvatica) from which nearly all descend. Used as a show tree, its distinctive purple leaves turn deep green in summer.

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Heart’s 2024 European Tree of the Year award win was the third on the trot for Poland, following Oak Fabrykant (Łódź) in 2023 and Oak Dunin (Białowieża Primeval Forest) in 2022.

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A beech also came second at European Tree of the Year 2024 – France’s Weeping Beech of Bayeux (pictured). Italy’s Thousand-Year-Old Olive Tree of Larus (age: 3,000-4,000) finished third.

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The Northern Hemisphere’s oldest known beech tree is 620 years old and can be found in Italy’s only primeval beech forest, in Valle Cervara in the southern region of Abruzzo.

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If Heart of the Garden sounds familiar, it may be due to the film Titanic and its famous necklace, Heart of the Ocean. Turns out Leo and Kate would have been better off with a lot of beechwood, which is far more buoyant.

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