Germany's Sanssouci Park seeks solutions as its trees struggle with climate change - Toronto Star

Germany's Sanssouci Park seeks solutions as its trees struggle with climate change

People walk in the park of the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany, Thursday, July 25, 2024. Germany’s Sanssouci Park seeks solutions as its trees struggle with climate change. (AP Photo/Geir Moulson)

A fountain sprays water at the bottom of the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany, Thursday, July 25, 2024. Germany’s Sanssouci Park seeks solutions as its trees struggle with climate change. (AP Photo/Geir Moulson)

People walk in the park of the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany, Thursday, July 25, 2024. Germany’s Sanssouci Park seeks solutions as its trees struggle with climate change. (AP Photo/Geir Moulson)

Signs explaining the trees were put up in the park of the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany, Thursday, July 25, 2024. Germany’s Sanssouci Park seeks solutions as its trees struggle with climate change. (AP Photo/Geir Moulson)

Germany’s Sanssouci Park seeks solutions as its trees struggle with climate change

POTSDAM, Germany (AP) — The avenues, monuments and gardens in the park surrounding Sanssouci Palace, a sprawling green oasis in the heart of the German city of Potsdam and a UNESCO world heritage site, look as magnificent as ever.

People walk in the park of the Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany, Thursday, July 25, 2024. Germany’s Sanssouci Park seeks solutions as its trees struggle with climate change. (AP Photo/Geir Moulson)

POTSDAM, Germany (AP) — The avenues, monuments and gardens in the park surrounding Sanssouci Palace, a sprawling green oasis in the heart of the German city of Potsdam and a UNESCO world heritage site, look as magnificent as ever.

But a closer look shows that all is not well with the park’s trees, which increasingly are struggling with the effects of climate change. Among the signs are beech trees with thinning crowns, big branches that have crashed to the ground and trunks with much of their bark peeled off.

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“Perhaps the exhibition will help point out that we have such problems here; that extreme examples of climate change are already visible not just where people live in a river valleys and have to experience a flood, but also in idyllic Sanssouci Park,” says Katrin Schröder, a curator of gardens at the foundation.

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The garden was later expanded substantially, growing into a 19th-century landscaped park that covers nearly 300 hectares (740 acres) and measures more than 2 kilometers (1 1/4 miles) from east to west. It has nearly 60 gardeners and has been part of UNESCO’s World Heritage List since 1990.

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