Live Christmas Trees

Eddie

Eddie

Eddie

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I don't like the idea of chucking a real tree out after xmas as it seems a tad wasteful and not very environmentally friendly so I bought a live xmas tree last night from B&Q thinking I'll be able to plant it out it in the garden after xmas. From reading about however, it seems that most trees will just die after a year or two if you plant them out and that even if you leave them in the pot they die after a while as they are apparently not suited to pot growth.

So I'm just wondering what the point of getting living xmas trees is? I may as well just get a fake one and stick it in the loft until next year.
 
AcidHell2 said:
They look much better and smell nice.
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Plus, they are just generally awesome.

I really enjoyed going to the forest (Tyrebagger, near Blackburn for anyone in the NE of Scotland, is amazing for Christmas trees) and picking which one we would have. It kinda symbolised the beginning of Christmas for me in a way. Every year I'd pick one, which was stupidly big (my dad and brother would tell me this) but I wouldn't have any of it and we always went with my choice.
Maybe if it was left to me to saw it down to size I may have chosen more sensibly though!
 
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AcidHell2 said:
They look much better and smell nice.
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So are you saying that 'live' trees, that are in a pot, look better and smell nicer than the ones that aren't in a pot? Seems strange, or do you mean over time i.e. the living ones don't lose their needles as quick? If so, is this the only reason why people buy the living ones then?
 
shoot1st said:
So are you saying that 'live' trees, that are in a pot, look better and smell nicer than the ones that aren't in a pot? Seems strange, or do you mean over time i.e. the living ones don't lose their needles as quick? If so, is this the only reason why people buy the living ones then?
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You can get trees which don't drop their needles. Not cheap, mind..
 
I only know of one or two that have survived after Christmas. The temperature shock of being inside for a few weeks followed by outside again, plus the watering abuse, seems to kill them.

Environmentally, I think a good quality fake tree is better. I don't have any evidence to back that up but ours is on its 5th year and has plenty more left in it. Factor in the forced growing, the transport and the disposal of 8 or 9 trees and the environmental footprint is almost certainly lower with a plastic tree.
 
My real tree from last year, still has it's needles attached to it! They are all brown, given, but they are still stuck fast. The tree is in the corner at the bottom of the garden in the garden waste pile. It was just a regular tree out of B&Q IIRC
 
AcidHell2 said:
I thought you meant compared to a fake. Rather than root vs no root. Needles are meant to last longer with a root.
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I was thinking that the reason why trees are sold in a pot is so that they actually live on after xmas, whether that's in the pot or whether you plant it out. If it's just because the needles last longer then it seems a little environmentally-unfriendly as it still gets chucked out after xmas anyway.

Jonny69 said:
I only know of one or two that have survived after Christmas. The temperature shock of being inside for a few weeks followed by outside again, plus the watering abuse, seems to kill them.

Environmentally, I think a good quality fake tree is better. I don't have any evidence to back that up but ours is on its 5th year and has plenty more left in it. Factor in the forced growing, the transport and the disposal of 8 or 9 trees and the environmental footprint is almost certainly lower with a plastic tree.
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I've always thought that that was why people bought the live ones, so as not to kill a tree just to stick it in the living room.

Here was me thinking I was doing the right thing buying a live one with the intentions of planting it out or maybe using it again next year. I don't like the idea that it's just going to die anyway.

If it's the temperature change that kills them I might just plant it in the garden now and go and buy a fake one.
 
theres nothing wrong with using a cut off tree as long as they dont just get burnt afterwards

however live trees are great as they dont shed everywhere
 
shoot1st said:
I was thinking that the reason why trees are sold in a pot is so that they actually live on after xmas, whether that's in the pot or whether you plant it out. If it's just because the needles last longer then it seems a little environmentally-unfriendly as it still gets chucked out after xmas any
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Hows it more unfeindly compared to a no root one? Fake ones will come from china so e en though it may last 6 years i doubt it is more environmentally friendly that reall, which are usually growen locally.


new ones are planted, so i also dobt get your point about killing them?
 
AcidHell2 said:
Hows it more unfeindly compared to a no root one? Fake ones will come from china so e en though it may last 6 years i doubt it is more environmentally friendly that reall, which are usually growen locally.

new ones are planted, so i also dobt get your point about killing them?
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I suppose there's arguments for and against it, but chopping a tree down just to stick it in the living room for a couple of weeks before discarding it doesn't really seem right to me, but I suppose that's the spirit of xmas these days.

I like the idea of a potted tree if that after I've used it it will live on either in the pot or planted. But it doesn't seem to be like that.
 
AcidHell2 said:
They are grown for that and new ones are replanted so they are carbon neutral. The only enviromental.Impact is transport and energy used to chip or mulch them.
You would have to keep an artifical one for 20 years. http://www.ellipsos.ca/modules/news/article.php?storyid=9&lang=english
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Well, I was skeptical but that LCA looks pretty robust. The fact that they seem to understand ISO14044 and the LCA was carried out using Simapro and the ecoinvent database is enough for me to believe that :)

Just remember that LCAs are site specific and that one has been carried out with site specific data for Canada, so don't take 20 years as a definite figure. It's a pretty good guide but not applicable for the UK situation where transport and mechanisation figures are very different, as are the end of life options.

But I think I'm happy that the life cycle for a fake tree should be longer than I assumed it was :)

Interesting to note that they found client transport over 10km accounted for 49% of the total life impact of a natural tree.
 
One other thing to note is their end of life scenario of chipping and burning for energy recovery doesn't happen over here. We chip and compost which means no net energy gain from the CO2 emission, as they have calculated. Composting produces methane rather than CO2 which is a much more powerful greenhouse gas, so I'd argue the lifetime of a fake tree could actually be significantly lower in this country.
 
As long as it's not going into landfill its being off set by goods rather than pure energy either fertiliser or chippings. Would also ecpect a lot shorter travel distance and a larger one for fake, in the uk. But thats speculation.
 
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eh? we have 5 trees ex christmas trees in our garden all over 8 years old (the oldest nearly 20) that were planted out, not sure why you think they will die after a couple years?
 
Rich1988 said:
eh? we have 5 trees ex christmas trees in our garden all over 8 years old (the oldest nearly 20) that were planted out, not sure why you think they will die after a couple years?
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It was just that the label (which I probably should have properly read before I bought it :p) on the B&Q one I bought last night states that it isn't suitable to plant out and a few sites I was reading said that most of them just die anyway. I was under the impression that that was the reason why people bought the live ones in the first place.

But from what I've now read it seems that there are those trees which have been actually grown in a pot and then there's those trees which have just been dug up, roots trimmed, and then stuck in a pot. I think B&Q must be selling the latter. :confused:

Over the years, did you get yours just from garden centres and the like, are they specifically sold as a 'live' tree that you can plant out or re-use the next year?
 
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