xmas trees

[clueless]

happy new year guys

 

where can i find out about xmas trees? suppliers and growing them etc

 

i want to plant a few for a bit of pocket money over the next few years.

 

cheers

[Pine Marten]

The British Christmas Tree Growers Association

[woodplans]

Seedling suppliers:

 

The UK's Largest producer of cell grown plants

 

Trees, shrubs, reeds & grasses and Marginals - Cheviot Trees

[tomw]

I put half an acre of spruce in ten years ago thinking it would be a moneyspinner. They all grew up spindly a d had a he'll of a job pruning them by hand. What with keeping weeds down with a knapsack and spraying for aphids it was a disaster.

[RobRainford]

Growing Christmas trees is easy. Managing them well enough to get a good crop is the hard bit!

 

We have a few hundred frasers ready to harvest this year. Lightly sheared and close grown so they are very bushy and a good cone shape. Sell better than nordmans!

 

Our spraying rig is one of a kind in the UK afaik. Imported from Texas. It's got a 600' smooth hose and it's own 200ltr tank and pump. The reel is on a remote and has a half horsepower motor. It WILL drag you up a hill!

 

We currently have 25000 growing. Mix of nordman Fraser and some spruce.

 

To see what pests are in your crop. Plant a line of blue spruce and these will show them all! Then you know what to spray for.

Edited October 20, 2011 by RobRainford

[cw1987]

Interesting what you say about Fraser, we ordered some last year for the 1st time along with the usual Nordmans.

Half the price from distributors but not a patch in terms of quality, yeah they sold but pretty poor trees comparatively and certainly not many peoples 1st choice.

[RobRainford]

It takes a lot of work to get frasers looking well. I'll get some pics of our trees currently growing and put them up here.

 

We sell pot grown and cut Fraser. We have sold out for the past 2 years now. The pot grown is a great option and sees a lot of interest.

[cw1987]

Yeah that would be good to see.

I think we're going 50/50 with Fraser/Nordman this year- mostly for profit.

Hopefully we will get better trees this year, it was our suppliers 1st batch last year.

 

We took some pot grown Nordman aswell and struggled with them, many ended up planted back out in the wood.

 

I guess its different where-ever you are, where you get trees from etc.

We also had a good foot of snow on the ground which may have affected sales a bit, most people took the 1st tree and ran with it!

[RobRainford]

Pics of our trees. Only got a few

[windfall]

WOW looks like the perfect set up!