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What do you do with your Xmas tree?

wildlife, gardening, environment, Rural living, Pets and Vets
bungeejumper
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What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191307

Postby bungeejumper » January 5th, 2019, 5:25 pm

The Beeb has some suggestions. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-46769080 . Not all of which seem to have been thought through.

Recycle it at the dump? Fine, apart from the petrol I suppose. Turn it into a perch for your garden birds? Well, I suppose it'll do until the last of the needles have dropped off?

Use the needles as a pine scent diffuser to make your house smell nice? Well, I suppose it'll make the place smell like a certain brand of disinfectant for a while, but fair enough. Plant the poor dying thing into the ground so that it'll be ready to re-use next Christmas? Not a bad idea, except that the BBC forgets to tell you to check that your tree actually has some roots. :| (Why do I think the BBC website is written by 16 year old townies?)

And finally, eat your tree. Turn it into spruce custard and freeze it. Scrummy. Oh, but only if it's an organic or FSC-certified tree which won't have a poisonous coating of conservatives. (No, maybe they didn't actually use that word.) And do make sure that your spruce isn't a yew tree, because you might have bought one by mistake, you silly billy, and that might be an error that you won't live to regret.

So, now, where did I put my receipt? Hmmm, spruce, fir or poisonous yew? Oh dear, I know one of them has red berries, but hmmm, I just can't remember which one? And when the barrow boy down at the Saturday market said FSC, was he talking about the tree, or did he mean For Suckers at Christmas? (Or something worse?)

We chop the branches off our trees and use them as winter ground cover for tender plants. The sawn-up trunks go onto the rotting log pile in the bushes that we keep for the hedgehogs. What do you do with yours?

BJ

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191309

Postby Imbiber » January 5th, 2019, 5:39 pm

Ours will be consigned to the flames, along with the prunings from currant bushes, gooseberry bushes and apple trees. No hedgehogs here unfortunately.

Itsallaguess
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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191310

Postby Itsallaguess » January 5th, 2019, 5:41 pm

Ours goes back up into the loft, ready for next year.....

I love a real tree - the smell, how they look - such a big part of my child-hood Christmas, but around 5 or 6 years ago we saw the prices of them almost double from one Christmas to the next, and for how long they are in the house, I simply couldn't justify what now seems to be ridiculous prices for them, so we got ourselves a good, large artificial one in the New Year sales, and it's been great.

We get some scented tree-decorations that smell like pine, and along with a pine-scented candle or two, I'm very happy with the current routine.

I still miss a real tree a little bit - I think when you've grown up with one then it becomes part of your Christmas in a way that's really difficult to fully replace, but there came a point with the very high prices of real trees where I had to say enough was enough, and looking back I only wish I'd made the decision much sooner.....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191311

Postby Breelander » January 5th, 2019, 5:43 pm

My local authority says "...Cut up your real Christmas tree and put into your garden bin".

bungeejumper
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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191313

Postby bungeejumper » January 5th, 2019, 5:51 pm

Breelander wrote:My local authority says "...Cut up your real Christmas tree and put into your garden bin".

Love the "real" in there. :) Suddenly my mind is filled with the thought of thousands of families taking a January hacksaw to their plastic trees so that they can be ecologically recycled into compost.

BJ

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191329

Postby PinkDalek » January 5th, 2019, 7:07 pm

Itsallaguess wrote:Ours goes back up into the loft, ready for next year.....


This being The Natural World rather than LBYM! Grandparents went pink in the sixties though and we soon got used to it.

… but there came a point with the very high prices of real trees where I had to say enough was enough, and looking back I only wish I'd made the decision much sooner.....


We go to a local farm where we are told they get their's from the same source as H-base etc but are a higher grade. At £55 for a seven-footer, which is still going strong, I think the prices may have come down a tad over the years. This place wouldn't be the same without it and getting it from the same place is part of what has become a tradition for us.

The cost will be defrayed by eating it, apparently. Turkey and pine needle curry is(n't) on the menu tonight.

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191428

Postby bungeejumper » January 6th, 2019, 9:33 am

PinkDalek wrote:We go to a local farm where we are told they get their's from the same source as H-base etc but are a higher grade. At £55 for a seven-footer, which is still going strong, I think the prices may have come down a tad over the years. This place wouldn't be the same without it and getting it from the same place is part of what has become a tradition for us.

Time was when we trundled down to our local farmhouse for slightly scruffy trees and a bit of mistletoe, and we enjoyed that tradition as well - but sadly the farm was then sold to a used car dealer who now uses the premises to fix up overpriced bangers. Sic transit. (Okay, okay, I'll get me coat.....)

Our eight footer came from B&Q and cost £26, which was a pleasant surprise because last summer we were being told that the drought had killed off a lot of stock, and that prices would be likely to rise. We always go for a real tree, partly because the house is old with high ceilings and it just looks better, and partly because the schoolkids passing us on their way to the school up the road get all excited, just like we used to.

Mind you, it was a bog standard spruce, and a nice one too as it happened. I can understand why people pay double that for a needle-free Nordman, but we bolt our trees into a big welded steel stand with a water reservoir, so that the needle drop doesn't really happen. I bought the stand thirty years ago from a local engineering workshop which was about to close down for ever, and I decorate our tree with handmade wooden ornaments which I bought in an East Berlin market in 1989, just a few days after the wall came down. Christmas traditions can be bittersweet, but that makes them all the more worth remembering.

BJ

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191483

Postby malkymoo » January 6th, 2019, 1:13 pm

Well, I rent my tree so I will be taking it back to the growers this afternoon. It is grown in a big pot, I keep it well watered and get no needle drop. If you get a sentimental attachment to your tree you can rent the same one next Christmas, but I will not be doing that. Cost me £25 for a 5-footer* , recommended!

*1.5 metres does not sound right somehow.

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191494

Postby jackdaww » January 6th, 2019, 1:50 pm

ours is a small home grown scots pine which has done us for about ten years .

its now pot bound , so will be planted outside this week.

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191522

Postby scottnsilky » January 6th, 2019, 4:11 pm

A friend of mine has just posted a photo of his tree on Facebook, with the comment,

24th appearance of the tree I found in a skip, now displaying 20 flowers.

No idea what breed the tree is. I didn't realise Christmas trees flowered, of course not many are that old.

dp

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191626

Postby midnightcatprowl » January 7th, 2019, 9:22 am

Apparently if you live near to an animal rescue/sanctuary which has goats, or you happen to know someone who keeps goats, goats regard (real) Christmas trees as absolutely delicious.

N.B. An animal sanctuary in Lincolnshire is appealing for locals to bring them their Christmas trees to be enjoyed by the goats.

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191629

Postby UncleIan » January 7th, 2019, 9:44 am

Popped it down the local park, legitimately. Collection spot from the local council, they shred them and use them on local parks and gardens.

It was £35 for a 6' Nordmann from a local scout hut. Might be more than standard but man they need a new scout hut so I don't begrudge it. Lovely tree and it hardly dropped any needles while in the house.

If your're brave, I was in B&Q the Friday before Christmas, all the real ones were £5. They had loads, though I think they only had spruce, I nearly bought one just to try making a wreath. Thing is, having a tree up is all part of the anticipation of it, waiting until 4 days before seems not right to me.

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191639

Postby Skotch » January 7th, 2019, 10:22 am

We rented ours - gets collected today with our name on it for rental again next year when it will be bigger and bushier. same cost as a cut one of similar size and definitely a more environmentally friendly option

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191655

Postby richfool » January 7th, 2019, 11:40 am

We stopped buying Xmas trees a few years ago.

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191754

Postby malkymoo » January 7th, 2019, 5:57 pm

Skotch wrote:We rented ours - gets collected today with our name on it for rental again next year when it will be bigger and bushier. same cost as a cut one of similar size and definitely a more environmentally friendly option


Hi Skotch, just out of curiosity, what part of the country do you live?

I live in Gloucestershire, curious about availability of rented trees in other areas.

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Re: What do you do with your Xmas tree?

#191954

Postby Skotch » January 8th, 2019, 2:49 pm

malkymoo wrote:
Skotch wrote:We rented ours - gets collected today with our name on it for rental again next year when it will be bigger and bushier. same cost as a cut one of similar size and definitely a more environmentally friendly option


Hi Skotch, just out of curiosity, what part of the country do you live?

I live in Gloucestershire, curious about availability of rented trees in other areas.


I'm in Leicester and the place I got my tree was featured on BBC East Midlands Today one evening - http://www.loveachristmastree.co.uk/

S


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