We have had Christmas trees growing on our fields for the last  10 years, the original trees are now very big, we have been selling them for the last 5 years and replanting as needed. We plant ours at extended spacing unlike some growers, this gives the tree room to grow to its true shape. As you can see we also don’t use weedkiller on our fields, we employ manual weed control and mechanical grass cutting methods.

We buy our trees as 12 to 18 inch bare root transplants in January, they are then planted in their permanent positions in the field, After 1 years growth they look like the tree above. At this stage all we do is try to keep down the weed growth around them, due to the warm autumn and winter this one could do with weeding now!

They continue growing for another 2 or 3 years until they get to this size, when we may cut back any long side shoots, or cut back the leader if it is getting too tall in relation to the rest of the tree.

From the 4th or 5th year of growing we begin pruning and trimming to shape, this one (on the left) is particularly misshaped due to a rabbit taking off all the lower branches on the left when it was a year old tree.

Hand weeding continues to keep down the rubbish around the tree.

Following the end of the selling season, we embark on the task of shearing the larger trees, this year it has been quite brutal as a lot of the trees were getting as wide as they were tall, so we have cut back the lower branches quite severely, this is in January so by June they should all have nice new soft growth around the cut branches and they will only need a very light trim at that time.

They will then continue growing until late November when it will be a nice full well shaped tree for Christmas.

The result of all this work is a lovely shaped, full tree ready to grace any ones home for the Christmas season.

We generally try to get the grass in the fields cut by the end of November (rain permitting) so its not too long to walk through when our customers come to browse the trees, we operate a kind of ‘pick your own’ system, where the customer chooses the tree they want while it is still growing in the field, we then cut or dig it for them, either there and then, or on a day when they want it.

Note.. It is usually only possible to dig trees that are up to 6ft tall, larger trees would have to be cut.

From Autumn 2012 we will have a tree netting machine available to wrap the sold tree to make it easier to transport.

And we will have a selection of tree stands with a water reservoir built in to not only keep your tree upright and secure, but also keep it watered to reduce the dreaded needle drop to an absolute minimum.