12 replies to this topic

[Cornish Gems]

At first we did not think that growing Christmas Trees was feasible, but we have slowly come to the conclusion that there was no reason NOT to grow them. We are grateful to Shaun for the 'talk' he gave at the Fest and impressed with the trees he brought for demonstration purposes. Well, our first lot of 1,000 trees arrived quicker than we originally expected and so we are hurrying to follow in the more successful of Shaun's footsteps.

However, there are a couple of points which spring to mind. A search of the internet for more info revealed a site which suggested that one should start off in a small way, ie, with 20 ACRES!!! We were under the impression that we could grown a total of 4,000 trees on one acre, ie, plant 1,000 trees each year with the idea of selling the first ones when they are 4/5 years old. Is it to do with the variety? Or is it because the American idea of small is not the same as ours? We decided on Norway Spruce as it seemed to tick most of the boxes relating to our land. One thing that is clear is that it is not a good idea to plant them too close together, ie, that they should therefore be at least 1.2m apart. Does anyone else have a Christmas Tree Plantation and are they running Shropshire sheep amongst the trees?

Also, there is the British Christmas Tree Growers Association. Before we fork out for the membership fee, does anyone know whether it makes a difference if one has purchased the seedlings from a firm which is NOT listed as a member of the Association? Finally, how does the Association decide under which region a member is to be listed?

[ShaunP]

Phil

I made the mistake of planting of planting at 0.9m centres. I will go with 1.2m in future. It is very hard to walk through me trees without getting soaked from the wet branches. In reality it makes the prunning and spraying very hard as we have very little space to get around the trees.
I have decided not to sell trees this year as we still dont have sufficient 6ft trees. We will be there next year and then have a flow of trees coming through. We first planted 2year old seedlings in April 2008 so it is not a get rich quick but it will start to provide an income stream that is very profitable for the area of land that it takes up.

I have been on a BCTGA open day and thought it very useful. I will probably join up in Jan and you could probably join me on an open day next year. They seem to do 1 a month from Feb to Sept in many different places and sizes of location. I think for the listing you can choice as some people are listed in many different regions as suppliers.

[Cornish Gems]

We just have to ask - do you wear waders when doing maintenance to your trees?

No - we realise that it is not a get rich quick scheme but then nothing to do with F2F is. Why it is a good idea though is now obvious - theoretically one has 5 years to deal with the building and engineering works and by that time the tree sales should add quite a chunk to the financial aspect of the business when one feels it is time to apply for living on one's land via planning rules. And we still feel that this should play an important part in planning circles.

[ShaunP]

CG

When I am shearing the trees waterproof over trousers are a must!!

I agree entirely about the long term finances, that is why I have done it!!

[Romany]

I considered this in my business plan for uni, however when I bought the mobile home I discovered the guy has a plantation (less than half a mile from me) so have not yet implemented the idea, although his trees seem to be huge, much larger than the average person buys for their house (perhaps he gave up on the idea of selling them?). I do feel it would certainly be worth my while selling the trees as I am on the main road whereas he is not, however due to my high visibility from the road I would be concerned about theft, a not unknown phenomenon, of both live and cut trees.

I did look into suppliers of grown trees but have not ordered any yet, probably too late now as the season will be starting in a couple of weeks! (I really must get myself better organised for next year!)

Should I approach the guy with the plantation to see if I can purchase a few trees to judge passing trade? (I don't know if he has any smaller trees, but I do know some people cut the tops off trees to sell!) I don't think there is anyone else selling trees within a few miles radius.

Romany

[ShaunP]

Hi Romany

We have just shelved the opening for this year as our trees are not quite ready so fingers crossed for next year. I only have Norway Spruce and have been advised by several members of the British Christmas Tree Growers Association to also buy in some Nordman Firs to sell alongside our own. There are several Growers on there website and many would still be able to take orders now if you still want to go ahead.

I am down a lane about 1 mile from the main road. I had planned a leaflet drop around the local villages and agreed some signage with the farmer that owns the field at the junction with the main road. So if you are on the main road road I would suggest you need to get some signs up pretty quick if you are still thinking of getting some trees in this year.

Shaun

[Cornish Gems]

Should I approach the guy with the plantation to see if I can purchase a few trees to judge passing trade? (I don't know if he has any smaller trees, but I do know some people cut the tops off trees to sell!) I don't think there is anyone else selling trees within a few miles radius.
Romany

OMG! We wish we were in your situation! What a good idea! We certainly would in your shoes! After all, he can only say 'No' so you would not have lost anything. Another alternative is that you offer to sell his trees for him for a small commission. It all really depends on his attitude towards money.

[Romany]

Thanks ShaunP and CGs.

His attitude towards money?! I would think he's pretty well off, not only does he buy and sell lots of statics, but he also deals in turkeys (thousands of them from what I saw last year when they were being prepared for the Christmas market). Knowing what people with money are like, this probably means he's ready to make more lol!

I'll go see him tomorrow to put the ideas to him, see what he favours.

Romany

[Cornish Gems]

Well! Well! Well! We had delivery last Tuesday of 1,000 Christmas Trees. They are slightly different sizes and by jove it's taking us quite a while to deal with them. These seedlings are supplied in packs of 10 and so we took 3 packs with us to market this morning. It turned out to be a good idea. We sold 2 unwrapped packs at 25% profit and then most of the third pack as individual trees (needing planting, etc) at 50% profit each. We do not expect to have any unopened packs left by next week, but are thinking whether we could take some more trees this time already planted up in pots.

One of our buyers said that she was going to decorate her tree with old earrings and use it as a table decoration with a difference. This gave us another idea and so we are looking for something we could use to decorate some more trees and see if they would also sell. We were also asked if we supplied trees for hedging and that if we did he would buy several from us no matter how small they were! It's an interesting thought and may be one of the ways we can start to move forward again.

Just had another thought! What happens if we sell all the trees? Oh how wonderful that would be! Hope springs eternal!

[Romany]

Well done CG!

What do you mean by seedlings? How big are they?

Romany

[Cornish Gems]

The supplier says 15-30 cms, but we suspect that a couple of them may be slightly smaller - AND before you ask we do not know how they are measured!

Now we would like to pick the brains of fellow forum members - if we fastened a sequin or something similar to 'branches' of these seedlings with a pin, would we be harming the future life of the tree?

[shepie]

xmas trees / kids and pins comes to mind !!!!!

[Cornish Gems]

Thanks Shepie for that! You are of course perfectly right! It is so easy to forget simple things when one is too busy trying to look at the whole picture. Indeed, we have shelved the idea for fear of doing something for which we have not obtained some kind of necessary permission/licence/insurance. So, we have decided instead to decorate a couple of the trees for display purposes and let buyers choose what to do with theirs. Someone suggested thin strips of ribbon and curling them against a scissor blade. Then someone else mentioned that Lidl had some interesting ribbon and so we have bought some and by jove they are just even better than imagined! One has to see the ribbon to understand but we have been separating the 3 strands and rescuing bits of them in order to make 'baubles'. We are extremely pleased with the results!

Thanks everyone.