Recycle your tree after the celebrations
Tips on how best to look after your Christmas tree
It’s heads up time for Christmas trees! They’ve been appearing at local sales outlets since early November and an estimated ten million will be sold nationwide over the coming weeks. Most of them are cut, and in this respect they’re no different to the flowers we see for sale at the market stalls in that they are grown as a commercial crop. However, unlike the blooms mentioned, tree cultivation obviously takes much more than a single growing season.
For a two-metres tall Nordmann fir (Abies nordmanniana), we`re talking ten years from seed to selling. This time-consuming journey to maturity plus a reputation for holding on to its needles are reflected in the price. Alternatives, also with good needleholding capacity, include the Fraser fir (Abies fraseri), Korean fir (Abies koreana), Noble fir (Abies procera) and Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii).
The Norway spruce (Picea abies), Serbian spruce (Picea omorica) and blue spruce (Picea pungens) are generally less expensive because they are quicker to mature and do have a reputation for losing needles when stressed.
This is not to say that a Nordmann retains every single one of its modified leaves during the weeks it spends in the central heating of a home. My experience is of modest needle-loss despite adequate watering. In keeping with a flower stem that’s just been removed from the parent plant, dehydration and shrinkage begins the day it is felled. However, the needles do have a superior structural mechanism in their attachment to branches. This is an advantage when you consider there are circa 20,000 of them on a two-metre tree. So how can we keep them all on board?
Treat all cut trees whatever their needle-holding capacity or reputation, as you would a flower stem. When you get it home take a saw and remove the bottom three centimetres of its trunk to expose active cells. Plunge it into a bucketful of water and let it stand in the garage for a day or two. This encourages the tree to restart the process of translocating water throughout the system.
Helpfully, sales outlets generally have weighted clamps with a built-in reservoir for sale. Transfer your tree to one of these and most importantly, keep the water level topped up. In a warm room, one litre of water per day can be processed via transpiration and evaporation.
Respect the tree and nature by ensuring it’s recycled after the celebrations.