European Tree of the Year 2026 – vote for the Polish elm

The beginning of the calendar year is traditionally a time of plebiscites and rankings. Voting for the European Tree of the Year 2026 is stirring a lot of positive emotions in Poland, as one of the candidates for the title is a 110-year-old European white elm from Szydłowiec, popularly known as the Crooked Tree. What makes it so special?

Why this contest?

The European Tree of the Year contest has been organized by the Environmental Partnership Association (EPA) since 2011. Sixteen countries take part, each holding national editions every year to select a single candidate. The vote is not only a form of entertainment with a patriotic undertone, but above all a way to draw public attention to the importance of trees in our everyday lives.

The contest motto is a quote by British writer Richard Mabey: To be without trees would, in the most literal way, be without our roots. The organizers hope that the promotion accompanying the vote will help raise public sensitivity to unique dendrological specimens and their close ties to the fate of local communities.

A similar character was shared by the Animal of the Year 2026 plebiscite held in Poland in January, in which iconic native species competed, from the European pond turtle and the aquatic warbler to the gray wolf and the European beaver. We will learn the winner in the coming days, but the main message of the initiative was to spread knowledge about nature among the public.

The Crooked Tree of Szydłowiec, the Polish candidate

Poland’s candidate for the title of European Tree of the Year 2026 is a European white elm (Ulmus laevis) from Szydłowiec, growing on an island where the Castle of the Szydłowiecki and Radziwiłł families was built in the 15th century. The Crooked Tree is about 110 years old and measures more than 14 m in length, with a circumference of 227 cm.

Why do we talk about length rather than height? The charming elm, which has already won the title of Poland’s Tree of the Year 2025, grows horizontally from the bank, hanging over the castle moat. Its lowest branches almost touch the surface of the water, creating something resembling a footbridge. This shape is the result of bank erosion and competition for light. As recently as three decades ago, the bent trunk served local romantics as a bench, but today only birds walk along it.

The Crooked Tree has gained a whole circle of supporters in Poland. At the beginning of February, senior women from the Via Salutis Foundation in Wałbrzych came to Szydłowiec, bringing with them a hand-knitted dendro-scarf. The colorful blanket covered the trunk of the hanging elm as a symbolic form of protection against frost.

How to vote for the European tree of the year 2026?

Voting runs from 2 to 22 February this year and requires selecting two trees from among twelve candidates. Votes can be cast at: https://www.treeoftheyear.org/vote, where the most interesting trees and their stories are presented.

Among the rivals of the Crooked Tree from Szydłowiec are, among others, the thousand-year-old Prince Oldřich oak, one of the oldest in the Czech Republic; a Slovak apple tree that has been battling harsh weather conditions at an altitude of 860 m above sea level for 150 years; and the widest linden tree in the Baltic region, from Latvia. The competition for the European Tree of the Year 2026 also includes the tallest giant sequoia in the Netherlands (48 m) and a British common ash that survived the Industrial Revolution, wartime bombings, and the recent ash dieback disease.

It is worth adding that last year’s edition of the contest was won by the beech Heart of the Dalków Hills, a 300-year-old monumental specimen growing in the castle park in Dalków. In 2020, the title of Tree of the Year was claimed by a Czech pine, one of the few remaining traces of the village of Chudobín, flooded during the construction of the Vír dam.

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main photo: Krzysztof Karpiński