Staying Safe When Choosing Your Real Tree
Premium grade fresh cut Christmas trees make a welcome return to the Heath this year, offering a safe, outdoors environment in which to choose your real Christmas tree.
Working within the current Government guidelines, the team have implemented new safety measures, with a table of hand sanitiser at the entrance and contactless payment available. Where possible, families are encouraged to send one person to select the tree for the household, to help reduce the numbers of people attending. You may like to consider wearing gloves too, which of course helps with carrying the tree back to your car!
It wouldn’t be Christmas without considering the benefits of a real Christmas tree.
Authenticity: The tradition of picking your own tree can’t be beaten and they provide a wonderful fragrance in the home. For many, a real Christmas tree is the only way to go!
Environmentally friendly: Taking into consideration greenhouse gas emissions, use of resources, fertilisers, pesticides and human health impacts, studies show that an artificial tree would have to be reused for 20 years to be greener than buying a fresh-cut tree once a year. A Christmas tree field is, relative to other agriculture, a very stable, diverse, sheltering and non-toxic habitat. The Forestry Commission states that real trees use about 10 times fewer materials and five times less energy than artificial trees. Trees grown a few hundred miles away rather than manufactured in a factory thousands of miles away allow for a much smaller associated carbon footprint.
Wildlife habitat: A nine year harvest cycle creates a stable habitat providing a wonderful haven for a wide variety of wildlife.
Recyclable/biodegradable: Real Christmas trees require no manufacturing process and are 100% recyclable. Once Christmas is over rather than ending up in landfill sites they can be mulched for landscaping and gardening, or turned into woodchip.
How to best care for your real Christmas tree: When you get the tree home, cut an inch off of the bottom of the base (the same as you’d take a bit off the end of cut flowers). Place the tree in a bucket of water for an hour or so, only bringing in when you’re ready to decorate the tree. Mount the tree in a water retaining tree stand and place away from direct heat. Keep the stand topped up with water every day.