Heart of the Garden Tree of the Year 2024
In 2024, the Polish beech Heart of Garden from the Niemcza region won the European Tree of the Year contest. Yet another beech tree took the second place: The Weeping Beech of Bayeux from Normandy, France. An honourable third place went to The Thousand-year-old Olive Tree of Luras from Sardinia, Italy. Source: Timberbiz
Overall, 174,112 valid votes were cast in ETY 2024. Even though the first preliminary results showed the French beech in the lead, it was the Polish beech that was crowned the European Tree of the Year.
It is a Polish hat-trick as it is the third Polish tree in a row to win the contest.
Third place was taken by the ancient olive from Italy which narrowly beat a curiously shaped common camellia from Portugal.
The Heart of Garden grows in the centre of an old park. Its majestic appearance impresses with its unusually shaped and thick trunk, widely spread branches, and purple-coloured leaves. It is a living proof of an old park’s historic turmoil and dominates over the Arboretum situated around it.
The Award Ceremony took place in the European Parliament on 20 March.
This year’s Award Ceremony was held at a special place inside the European Parliament: the Yehudi Menuhin amphitheatre. It is perhaps the most prestigious space in the parliamentary complex and an exhibition showing all the finalist trees will stay there until today.
