As fresh Christmas Trees begin hitting stores and garden centres, all is not well in the world of festive greenery this year. In fact, there’s a perfect storm brewing that not only causing supply issues this year, but is likely to ricochet through the industry for years to come.
Everyone who wants a tree should get one, but quality is down on previous years, so the advice is buy from a trusted retailer that hand picks their trees from the plantations, as they’ll have the best ones around, this is exactly what we do at Gardening Express, rejecting anything that we don’t deem as the best for our customers.
If you don’t buy online from us, it will be a case of getting to the stores early to get the pick of what stock they have. There are stores out their with great trees, as we’re even supplying some ourselves through our wholesale division.
They’ll be enough standard/supermarket/diy store grade trees around elsewhere, but due to the shortages of quality trees, even more premium outlets are having to stock these this year too. The problem with trees like this is that they can be sparse and gappy, certainly not a full premium tree as these always get reserved by other retailers that are prepared to pay more and compete on quality, not just price. Plus these sort of trees often get stored at far from ideal conditions - supermarkets aren’t known for fridge like temperatures, so trees can go over quickly and not last in the home.
Why is tree quality a problem this year?
So, what’s the cause of these quality issues this year? Quite simply, premium quality trees are in short supply due to the wet weather early in the year, which has played havoc with growth, along with cooler temperatures early in the growing season. Excess moisture at the wrong time can cause fungal diseases to prevail, affecting the growth and quality of the crop. Rising fertiliser prices have also seen some tree farms reduce the amount of feed they’re providing trees, but this to has had a knock of effect to the finished product with poorer growth and branching.
Therefore we have a classic supply and demand situation with prices rising across the board this year on all grades of tree. We know times are tough for our customers, so have held as many of our prices as possible, but expect increases up to 20% elsewhere. Long term, prices are also likely to keep going up too, once escalating labour and transport costs are factored in thanks to the recent budget.
Can’t we just import trees cheaper from abroad?
The UK already imports around 3 million trees from abroad every year, mostly from Denmark, and they’re suffering the same problems as UK growers, so there is no respite, in fact, the Danes are even shorter of quality trees this year than the main UK growers up in Scotland.
All imported trees are also subject to EU red tape and costly health inspections before they can enter the UK too – after all, we don’t want nasty non-native pests entering the UK, so they won’t be any cheaper.  The eight-toothed spruce bark beetle is typically found in mainland Europe and northern Asia but has unfortunately already arrived in the UK, which could put the whole Christmas Tree industry at risk in future years if it continues to spread.
Are we planting more Trees to ensure a plentiful supply in to the Future?
Looking further to the future, a lot of plantations haven’t been replanting. These are inter-generational farms, with younger generations now losing interest dazzled away from the farm by the bright lights of careers elsewhere with better returns.
I’m usually one to avoid any political commentary but this situation is likely to be exacerbated in the U.K. given the changes to farmland inheritance in the recent budget. It’s sad to say, but the knock on effect of this will cause farms to close and pack in production. Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer are literally becoming the Grinch stealing Christmas for our children and future generations on this one. They probably don’t even realise it, and given it takes at least 7 years to grow a Christmas Tree, they’ll likely be long gone when the catastrophic effects are truly felt. The estate agents Strutt and Parker have Christmas tree farms on their booked already where farms have decided now is the time to throw in the towel. One of the biggest that has already gone up for sale and specialises in growing premium quality trees is Garrocher Christmas Tree Farm in Dumfries and Galloway - ironically, they’ve previously supplied Downing Streets Christmas Trees.
Any Tips for Keeping this years tree looking it’s best?
One big tip for this year, wherever you buy a tree, is to keep it well watered. Temperatures are higher than average with very little in the way of frosts yet, so the trees haven’t fully gone in to dormancy, meaning they’ll drink more water.
Order Premium Quality Cut Nordmann Fir Christmas Trees here