‘I was proud to supply the tree to 10 Downing Street’
davina griffith, 62, is married and lives in hereford with her husband Colin. In 2011, she founded Festive Farm Weekends, a Christmas tree farm with an on-site santa’s grotto.
✢ THE IDEA the fields around our house were full of norway spruce and nordmann fir trees, and our small business – dinmore hill christmas trees – started when we began to sell them as a sideline. it gradually became so successful that my husband colin gave up his job to tend the christmas tree fields full-time. meanwhile i was head of hr for a building services firm. each night, i would come home at 8pm, exhausted, to find colin glowing from his day tending to the trees. eventually i thought, “there’s more to life than this!” so, when my company was sold, i saw it as an opportunity, and left to join my husband working in our own business.
going out to buy a cut tree is often a nice family outing, so i thought it would be lovely to offer a more festive day out. so i established Festive Farm Weekends, a separate weekend business welcoming families onto our 60-acre farm, where they can visit santa’s grotto and choose their own christmas tree from the fields.
✢ MAKING IT HAPPEN
i couldn’t believe it when i discovered that one of colin’s customers was a professional Father christmas who had previously worked in lapland. then, when my electrician brother-in-law Andrew jumped at the chance to create a magical festive grotto, it all started to come together. We hung banners advertising the Festive Farm Weekends at the dinmore hill site, which is just off the
A49, and set up a Facebook page to spread the word. We even invited local schools to come and choose their tree.
✢ BREAKTHROUGH MOMENT in 2014, we won the british christmas tree growers Association grower of the year award for the second time (the first was in 2007), and supplied the christmas tree for 10 downing street. the competition is judged by other growers and as i stood proudly next to the tree with colin, i knew that making the leap from my job in hr had been the right move. Another really proud moment was realising, two years ago, that Festive Farm Weekends was a successful stand-alone business.
✢ STEEPEST LEARNING CURVE recruiting staff who are happy to work weekends over the seasonal period. the weeks in the run-up to christmas are a time of celebration for many, but it’s also Festive Farm Weekends’ busiest time. Finding reliable staff – who wouldn’t call in sick at the last minute after having a late night – was a challenge.
✢ WHERE I AM NOW i now employ 10 others, over two farms, who help cut trees, and most of them return each year to work from november through to december. We grow around 40,000 trees on site and have just planted another six acres of christmas trees. every year our grotto gets a makeover – i’m always excited to see the festive scene! BUsINEss IN FIgUrEs start-up costs: £6,700 Comprising...
Christmas trees: £5,000 santa’s grotto: £800
Netting machine: £200
Netting: £200 sundries: £500
Current turnover: £50,000 Website: dinmore-christmas-trees. co.uk/festive-farm-weekends