Or do fake trees always look crap?

[heyyyottoe]

So I treated myself to a Balsam Hill tree and I’m honestly shocked at how shit it looks.

All my previous trees weren’t great but I thought buying this brand would be better … how mistaken I was.

so sparse and ugly. If I ever bother to decorate I’ll just get a real tree from now one.

I only had a real one last year for the 1st time and I could see bugs when I topped the water up 🤮 I would rather have a fake one that’s not perfect than bring bugs into the house on purpose. Yours looks poor for the money though - sorry! I just had one delivered and it’s really nice and bushy for a similar price to that.

Good grief, none of that is good practice and all very avoidable with better systems in place.

Firstly, you bought the wrong kind of tree. Nordmann firs don‘t lose their needles (and certainly not this long before Christmas) and are pretty and bushy. You can also buy a stand with a built-in water supply to keep them extra fresh.

Secondly, the problem you describe with disposal is entirely avoidable. Here in Germany Christmas trees are a fairly sustainable crop. They grow locally so have a low carbon footprint, and used trees are just left out by the roadside to be collected by special waste disposal trucks in January. They get chopped up and taken to bio-mass power plants and are turned into energy. Unsold Christmas trees go to the zoo as elephant food.

That’s always going to be more sustainable than a heap of plastic. It’s hardly the fault of the trees that the correct systems aren’t in place, or that people are irresponsible and lazy enough to fly tip them.

Our village has a scheme where they are collected from the roadside on around the 7th/8th Jan and turned into mulch to be used on the local Community Garden.

That looks pretty rubbish sorry.

I have 2 fake trees one from balsam hill which cost £££ and take bloody ages to fluff but does look nice once it’s done and another one from Wilkos which was £40 about 5 years ago and still looks ok.

We also get a real tree (yes we have 3 trees which I can be bothered to do them) this year we are not home much so have only got the Wilkos one out and the real one.

It doesn’t look ‘shit’ really, but for £160 that is an absolute piss take. It looks like my £35 IKEA tree (which im happy with because it was cheap).

You expected luxury and they sent you something that was entirely different from what they advertised!

I’d have returned immediately.

@heyyyottoe sorry to read your MH wasn’t doing well but I’m glad you’re doing better. Are you able to send it back? If not how about going full 70s kitsch and chucking some cheerful tinsel over it? Something that makes you smile when you see it. Just think where you where a few months earlier and now you have a tree, even if you’re disappointed with it imagine how proud you’d be of someone else (a friend/sibling) who has come as far as you have. You should smile when you see your tree for that reason alone x

Im missing the point of the thread here but my girl dog will piss on the real tree. No idea why but she cannot cope with them at all. Even if I don’t let her into the living room we have the real tree in it makes her piss anxiously everywhere. One year my other dog pulled down our tree because I stupidly put chocolate decs up for the kids and then had to spend a shit tonne of cash taking my dog the vet to make him sick.

Not remotely relevant but one of my DC (sen) can’t cope with me having real plants. He tries to throw or eat the soil so my house is destined to be full of plastic tacky tat, Mumsnetters would hate my house with passion 😂 (sorry Mumsnet, I do plenty of things to not wreck the planet in other ways, I promise!)

That is nothing like the one that you paid for, I would definitely be asking for a refund. It is supposed to make you smile, not piss you off!

I think fake trees always look fake. They either look shit, or too perfect ime. I love the smell and character of real trees. They’re definitely getting expensive now though - our 6 footer was £55 but at least the council will pick it up after Christmas as part of of our annual garden waste subscription.

I don’t know what you are talking about?! Our fake tree looks wonderful and we are all very pleased with it.

You need to fluff up the branches, yours also looks quite sparse with the branches, are you sure you put it up correctly?

I prefer the look of a nice fake tree- real ones often look a bit sparse to me and start to turn brown as well. I find it quite special getting the same tree out of the loft every year like an heirloom. Ours is definitely more bushy than that but we do have to do some fluffing every year. I'd also recommend having some shiny balls more inside the tree or metallic beading to reflect the lights around.

That‘s a perfect example of what can be doe to make trees more sustainable and easy to dispose of! Pity not every council does something like that.

Tappa - of course if you have a lovely plastic tree from a second-hand source that’s also an example of sustainability in practice by recycling, which is definitely a good way to go about it if you prefer not to have a real one. And a fiver is a great deal - I‘m horrified at the price of bigger plastic trees.

I love our new tree from Christmas Tree World! Had to spend ages fluffing out the branches though!

Agreed, I've got a fake tree and the perfect triangle shape is a real bugbear of mine, I don't like Balsam Hill ones either so I've decided I'll have a beautiful real one next year...

Not the point of the thread but Sue Ryder run a scheme where they will come and collect your tree for a donation - you can check if they cover your area here.

We have one of each - I couldn’t be without a real tree, but I let the DDs decorate (and undecorate, and redecorate…) the artificial tree because they’re less likely to pull it over on top of themselves.

OP, sounds like you’re in a much better place. Long may it continue. I’d definitely send it back. Even if it is the right tree and just needs more fluffing, if that’s not what you want then it isn’t the right tree for you right now.

Just went to get a real one today and the place we usually buy from was sold out! Went somewhere else that wanted £75! So we dug out our fake one and it’s fine, actually easier to decorate than a real one . Only lights so far, will bauble it up tomorrow.

I don’t like them either, such a weird shape.

I don’t like them as they always look too neat and thin.

I have a potted Christmas tree that’s on it’s fifth year. I didn’t repot and water enough through the summer so it’s looking a little pale and sad but it will have to do. I’m hoping once it is dressed it will hide the worst and hoping for a bug free year! The buggers hibernate in the soil and the central heating wakes them. It’s not coming into the house until 20th at the earliest and will be out again ASAP.

Omg you need to send that back immediately! That can not be the same tree 🤣

I don’t like fake trees either. I love the smell, never had an issue either dropping leaves, and our north London council picks them up from the road after Christmas (they give a few dates they will collect them so not a problem).

Love our (now) 7 year-old Balsam tree. Worth every penny. We did have to spend ages bending out the branches and twigs in the first year though.

So this happened to us a few years ago now and we found out the hard way… had one you could actually see through it.. so what you want is a tree that has bristles that look like bottle brushes.. it pads it out and looks fab love our tree.

Fake trees always look like fake trees. The smell of a real tree, or it lacking, is also a giveaway. I’m not a plastic fan tbh.

You bought the wrong tree. To be fair BH are massively expensive and a good pre lit one is at least £900. I have a couple (best time to buy is August Bank Holiday weekend!) and they look fantastic. I wheel them out, flip them over, put the top on and plug them in. Job done and they always look great. Yes, stupidly expensive, but I was spending around £80 on each real tree every year. Then we moved to somewhere with underfloor heating, which is not great for real trees. Mine are 10 yrs old and still going strong. I think they will outlive me!

Fake trees look like fake trees, some people like the look.
Some people also have fake flowers and fake plants - great to keep dust 😂

Or better, fake grass.

It's a question of taste. I think they look awful, and for environmental reasons, fake grass should be banned, but if they're happy with their plastic tree or plastic flowers, they don't hurt anyone.