Twee Slangeden (Apenboom) In 's-Hertogenbosch

To mark the 500th year since his death, Het Noordbrabants Museum in the Netherlands has been presenting an exhibition, ‘Jheronimus Bosch - Visions of Genius’, from 13th February to 8th May this year. For one time only, the majority of his work was returned to his city, Den Bosch, which is officially known as ’s-Hertogenbosch.

As Hieronymus Bosch is Nathalie's absolute favourite artist, as an Xmas pressie, I arranged for us to go to the exhibition the weekend after Easter. We stayed at the amazing Cuba Casa B&B, which I can't recommend highly enough. The same applies to the delightful city of Den Bosch, which could not have been more welcoming. Everything about the city was delightful, from the food to the people who couldn't be more friendly if they tried, having visited Amsterdam a few times it was a real pleasure to experience another, more normal, side to the Netherlands.

The Garden Of Earthly Delights

The Trees Have Ears And
The Field Has Eyes

Visions Of The Hereafter

On the train journey from Schipol Airport to Den Bosch I noticed a fair number of conifers dotted around the flat landscape. Walking around the city and to its outskirts we also came across many fine trees, however there wasn't a Monkey Puzzle tree to be seen. I have to be honest I did start to moan, half seriously, about the Dutch's lack of Monkey Puzzles, especially as there surely is no better tree that captures Jheronimus Bosch' surrealism! So imagine my surprise, delight and shame when on our way back form our evening meal we came across this beautiful specimen in a front garden!

My First Non UK Monkey Puzzle Tree In Den Bosch 

Monkey Puzzle Tree In Den Bosch

Having achieved my first non UK Monkey Puzzle tree sighting I couldn't expect our trip could get any better. However, I was soon proved wrong the next day when we sighted Monkey Puzzle tree number 2 'hiding' behind a wall in a park funnily enough called Jeroen Bosch tuin (Jeroen was what Jheronimus' family called him and tuin means park).

My Second Non UK Monkey Puzzle Tree In Den Bosch

I Was Clearly Happy To Find Tree 2 Hiding Behind A Wall

So in the end not only did I get to see the work of one of the greatest painters to have graced the Earth I also managed to record my first 2 non UK Monkey Puzzle trees, all in all a near perfect holiday. 

Monkey Puzzle Trees Seen - 159      Monkey Puzzle Trees Yet To See - 15

A Few Tress On The Way To And From Monkey Puzzle Nirvana

Since I began my quest I have discovered, not unsurprisingly, that many other people around the World share my love for Monkey Puzzle Trees. Thanks to the incredible work of Sarah Horton who created and manages the Monkey Map, we now have a common place where we can 'register' our finds. This catalogue gives every single Monkey Puzzle Tree a label based on the UK postcode area where it is located and means that whenever a tree is discovered it can easily be cross checked by us enthusiasts to see if it is indeed a ‘new’ tree that we've found. Recently Sarah announced a postcode challenge encouraging people to try and find at least one Monkey Puzzle Tree in any of the 19 areas that still hadn't had a single tree spotted.

With this is in mind I spent a rather productive afternoon trawling the internet looking for possible trees in the Uxbridge post code (UB) area as it is reasonably close to where I live. I managed to locate 2 trees but also stumbled across one in the Luton (LU) area which also needed a tree. As that weekend promised glorious winter sun me & Nathalie decided to spend a day in the country near Dunstable looking for the LU tree (a country pub lunch being the final convincer) with the plan being to spot the 2 UB trees on the way home. As we were heading out to Dunstable I thought it might be worth seeing if I could find any other trees in the area and to my surprise I came across a place just outside Leighton Buzzard called Knolls Wood, which promised an avenue of Monkey Puzzle Trees, something I have never had the pleasure of seeing for real!

Saturday was indeed a beautiful day and we were soon turning off the M1 and heading into the LU postcode hunting ground. Before we even reached any of the tress we were heading for we manage to spot 2 trees in West Dunstable.

West Dunstable (LU3)

West Dunstable (LU4)

I am still in awe at what we saw at Knolls Wood. First we were greeted by a housing estate built amongst huge Redwoods that had been planted at the same time as the Monkey Puzzle avenue. The avenue itself exceeded all my expectations and I will be posting my account with pictures in my next post very soon. All I will say for now is that we counted 78 trees from huge 100+ year old specimens to tiny new trees that looked liked they had grown from the larger trees seeds. Unfortunately for the Monkey Map we were not really properly equipped to catalogue the trees accurately so we plan to return when the days are longer to record all the trees there properly! This link shows a small part of the the avenue in 3D - 3D Photo From Knolls Wood.

On the way to finding the other tree in Eggington we knew about we managed to spot another one on the other side of the village. Then to my surprise the huge tree we knew about turned out to have a smaller sibling growing in its shadow. Finally LU gave us one more tree as we headed off to find a pub for dinner! Since the trip I have read that Luton Hoo hotel apparently has a Monkey Puzzle Tree avenue as well so it would seem LU is in fact a very good postcode for a monkey Puzzle Tree hunter!

Eggington 1 (LU5)

Eggington 2 (LU1)

Eggington 3 (LU2)

Stanbridge (LU6)

A quick search on Google came up with a promising pub in Sarratt called The Cricketters that I had vague recollections of as I grew up not that far way, so we headed off for a  well deserved dinner. Unbelievably before we even reached the pub we spotted another huge tree.

Sarratt (WD11)

Having had a As the sun was beginning to set we finally arrived in Uxbridge & Greenford where we managed to find the two trees in the UB postcode we had hoped to see. Both quite impressive trees with the Uxbridge one having a lovely position at the front between two houses, where hopefully it will never be an issue regarding blocking off light, something I am beginning to realise is the cause of many Monkey Puzzle Trees's demise.

Greenford (UB1)

Uxbridge (UB2)

So all in all it was an incredible day of Monkey Puzzle Tree spotting thanks to out trusty van Geoff and Nathalie's shared enthusiasm for spotting Monkey Puzzle Trees (& a day out in the country with a pub lunch thrown in).

Monkey Puzzle Trees Seen - 79      Monkey Puzzle Trees Yet To See - 15

Three More Monkey Puzzles

A quick update on three new trees that I have been lucky to see since before the summer.  The first was seen whilst visiting friends in Sevenoaks.  The last time I'd visited them there had been a large tree in one corner of their garden, this had now been removed and its absence revealed their next door neighbour's beautiful, large tree!

Sevenoaks (TN2)

The second tree was spotted out of the car on the way home in Victoria Park, I've not been able to visit it yet but will do soon.

Victoria Park - Google Street View (E4)

The third followed a tip-off from a colleague at work, I managed to drive by after beekeeping but have yet to take any photos of it.

Shoreditch Park - Google Street View (N3)

Monkey Puzzle Trees Seen - 16       Monkey Puzzle Trees Yet To See - 5