Cast a vote for the Orlando oak at Knole Park in England, which is up for the title of Tree of the Year 2025. It is thought to be the one featured in Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando. And the Orlando oak is one of 10 inspirational trees that are up for this year’s tree title.
This year’s competition is themed “Rooted in Culture” and spotlights the vital role trees play in literature, music, film and theatre.
Looking through the Knole gate
About the Orlando oak
At 135 feet high and the tallest sessile oak in Britain, this special tree towers over the others at Knole, the family home of Virginia Woolf’s lover and friend, Vita Sackville-West and the inspiration for her 1928 novel.
The early pages of the novel describe Orlando walking
to a place crowned by a single oak tree…so high indeed that nineteen English counties could be seen beneath; and on clear days thirty or perhaps forty!
It is this tree that inspires Orlando’s poem “The Oak Tree,” which appears repeatedly throughout the book. Orlando eventually returns to the tree to bury the poem as a tribute.
The tree with the most votes will go on to represent the UK in the next European Tree of the Year competition.
How to vote
Voting closes at 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 19. The winner will be announced Sept. 26. Read more and cast your one-time vote. The contest is sponsored by the UK’s Woodland Trust.
View from the rooftop of Knole.
