The Christmas Tree Forest
The tree is up! The decorations including this delightful selection of vegetables, a couple of dinosaurs, Santa on a Nasa rocket, and many Kings and Angels have gathered once more, in amongst the pine needles, baubles and lights.
Christmas Veg!
When it comes to a Christmas Tree Forest, I guess it is all about perception. To one child that maybe the excitement of going to a wood (though perhaps it’s a field) and wandering around looking at all the trees and selecting which one should be cut down and brought home. To another, ‘the forest’ may actually be a pub carpark, transformed for just a few weeks with a wooden hut and hundreds of netted trees, sorted by height! We are the latter but it is ‘our wood’ and for many years we have headed there and my once small, now a lot bigger, tree choosing companion would somehow persuade the assistants to un-net a large selection of trees so we could compare and contrast - making a choice between the ‘too skinny’ and the ‘we won’t be able to get it through the door’ contestants.
This year was no exception. We had the most lovely guy and it was his first day, though he had done the job before, so he was knowledgeable, still enthusiastic and it was a Tuesday morning so not busy. (His predecessor had been sacked the day before; allegedly not all tree receipts were going in the till!) He rummaged amongst the six footers….'I’ve got a good feeling about this one’ he said, and he was right. Our new friend cut the bottom off the trunk and we took it home and immediately put it in the holder and gave it some warm water and for the first time ever I think - our tree is taking up water.
It’s a strange business the Christmas tree business and there must be a plant story in there somewhere. I have a friend who grows them in Hereford and I remember laughing and saying, ‘bring some down to London’, people here would love to buy your trees. It turns out its a bit like burger vans and football grounds - people have their pitches and you can’t just turn up with your van load of trees. One year my brother in law sold them at his farm in Suffolk. I remember that come Christmas there were just a few left and we had the idea of putting them all in pots and moving them into one of the big barns, so we could create an indoor ‘Christmas tree forest’ when we sat down to eat. It was magical.
For my husband just putting up the Christmas tree any day before the 24th December is a concession. Growing up his parents would put the tree up on his Dad’s birthday (23 December) and decorate it and then the door to the lounge would be firmly closed. It was only opened on Christmas Eve when a bell would be rung and the children came into the room see the tree - lit with real candles. Now that is very magical and yes I did say LIT! When we first lit our tree I had a tea towel on hand - though how I ever thought that was going to smother a flaming tree I don’t know! It’s all about the careful positioning of the candles and ensuring you have extinguished them ALL.
As children, my sister and I were mixing Persil washing up powder with water to create fake snow and painting that onto the pine needles - of course it would dry and then flick off onto the carpet. Still however you decorate your tree I hope you have a wonderful time and I will let you know whether the tree continues to take up water.
I promised some more recommendations from the Garden Media Guild Awards and I would like to give a shout out to a great creator: Alex Smith. He won Gardening Video of the Year, against stiff competition for: Which Garden Mulch Saves the Most Water. This is his second win in two years. Last year he won with his video: Can you be self-sufficient while working a full-time job? With a Phd in Physics, you can really see Alex’s scientific approach to his experiments but I love the way that he always takes a more unexpected and entertaining way to share the learning - I’m still a fan of Arthur the slug who was part of the how to deter slugs experiment. Do take a look.
Have a lovely weekend!
love
Sally
xx