{"id":795712,"date":"2026-10-08T08:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T08:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/795712\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T08:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T08:00:10","slug":"tree-of-the-year-wonky-wych-elm-in-county-down-wins-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/795712\/","title":{"rendered":"Tree of the Year: Wonky wych elm in County Down wins title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But it has survived more than the weather.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">As a native elm tree, it also resisted Dutch Elm disease, which destroyed most of the 30 million elms around the UK in the 1960s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Martin said it had shown &#8220;remarkable resilience&#8221; to live as long as it has and added that it was &#8220;great&#8221; to see a tree of this age acknowledged.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Ancient Tree inventory lead at the Woodland Trust, May Chemais, said it was an &#8220;astonishing and bizarre&#8221; tree that had endured a lot.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The Bendy Tree has been blasted by extreme winds, over and over again, for well over a century.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;But it has continued to exist and remain rooted, adapting to its surroundings and flourishing into this unusual shape that is providing shade and joy to its community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;We&#8217;ve all been through changes and hardships that have shaped who we are &#8211; I think that&#8217;s why the Bendy Tree has struck a chord with people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She added that older trees like the Bendy Tree are part of a community&#8217;s culture, providing shade and stories.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But it has survived more than the weather. As a native elm tree, it also resisted Dutch Elm&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-795712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}