Rent a Christmas tree? What does everyone think?

[ABCeasyasdohrayme]

I have been looking at ways to be more eco friendly and stumbled upon a company who rent you a Christmas tree every year, then they take them back, replant them, and rent you the same one again next year until the trees 'retire' to a forest on the companies land.

The tree rental is probably about what a real tree would cost each year (I currently have a fake tree, but when that turns to shit I may well go for this).

Is this a good idea? Are there any downfalls I cant see (besides emissions from the delivery). Or does anyone have a better idea for a more sustainable Christmas tree?

We’ve done this for several years now. I’m surprised at all the negativity actually, it works really well! Where we go, you pick out a tree, (usually in November), then you collect or they deliver locally. You get a saucer and water the tree daily. Then in the New Year it goes back. As long as the tree is healthy enough to replant (if you’ve watered it) you get a 20% discount the following year. We don’t get the same tree year by year but get a tree from them. We’ve done this at least 5 times without any problems. The only compromise we do make is we don’t tend to get our tree until the second weekend in December but some get them earlier (I’ve seen the van delivering).
I’m gutted because we have a puppy so DH has insisted on an artificial tree this year but honestly OP, this is something we’ve done loads of times and it worked really well!

We have no tree for a mixture of environmental, financial and space reasons. Our decorations have evolved once we put environment at the core. We make some stuff we really like, mostly out of recycled or very minimal bits.

I doubt the trees wouid survive beyond the first year. Uprooting annually will kill a tree, especially when you add on winter temperature changes between indoors and out

Have your own, which you can keep in a pot until it needs potting on and just move it when you want to (remembering to harden it off gradually for its return outside.

Or just accept that trees are a cash crop, consume and recycle

Or get a plastic one and keep it for your whole lifetime (I'm not sure if the sort f plastics for trees can be recycled, so keep it going - if it looks a bit tatty, add more tinsel!!)

The most eco friendly solution for you right now, is just to keep your current artificial tree for as long as possible. I think ours is coming up 20 years old, and needs to stand for a day to let it's 'needles' fluff up a bit now, then it's good to go. There are definitely better trees around, but we are maximalist with decorations, so it is barely seen anyway!

I miss the pine smell, I do not miss the needles and disposal of a real tree.

@Elieza

It would be fine if you keep your tree outdoors. Not so sure indoors would be very good unless you only had it up inside for like a week max.

Doubt it would survive indoors for those who put them up the first week in December until 12th night and then it goes back out. The two temperature changes would likely kill it.

Why not just buy your own tree (with roots) in a pot and put it out after the festive period? Is that not exactly the same thing? For a fraction of the price? I’d expect it to die though unless you keep your house cool.

This is also a fair comment. We brought ours indoors on the 19th of December and it went back on New Years Day and it was fine. I wouldn't have had it inside for a month!

I bought a very cheap potted tree one year, which survived our house and has been happily planted out in our garden ever since (at least 5 years). They don't always die...

@ABCeasyasdohrayme

Do you not do Christmas decorations at all? Or just no tree?

I did see a tree that was wooden and sort of fanned out into spiral shelves that you can put ornaments or whatever on. Maybe that would be a good solution.

I have several (fake but realistic - and have had the same ones for 20 years) garlands , entwined with warm white fairy lights, draped in the usual places -and candles and lights in the windows. I also have an antique (well, as old as me) Angel Chimes that takes me right back to my childhood. This is all just right for me - as a tree makes me sad, since my beautifully thought out one was lost to me in the divorce at that time.

This year, I am also changing my door wreath, which was a simple twisted willow, minimal design made by a friend about a decade ago. I am passing that on and "hand making" my own on a Hobbycraft base of eucalyptus - to which I am adding some pale gold holly and beads, and matte and glitter blue and white baubles. I know blue isn't a colour for Chistmas (imo at least) but the nice teal and aqua shades are so lovely that I can't help myself. If not that, it would be 100% traditional with red, green and gold.

This is all, for me, about the design rather than Christmas itself - I am aware of that, but it is how I will get through this "festive" time

I have one in a pot in the garden and bring it in ,this will be the 3rd year.

@Allaboutyou222

Most Xmas trees are grown as a crop.

They are all grown as a commercial crop.

@Bellie710 We have a real tree every year and have tried keeping it in the pot but it doesn't live even with regular watering. The only way I think they would survive is if your house is below 10 degrees.

Oh God, flashback to the year we had a tree with roots and my dad refused to turn the heating on over Christmas! That was bloody miserable, and the tree went and died when we planted it outside anyway.

Useful comparisons of the different options here, including rental.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/857525a2-4ee2-11ec-9043-2aa4c0c21cd8?shareToken=a482f46eb7db6c4816c98445abd96a20

@PurrBox

I bought a very cheap potted tree one year, which survived our house and has been happily planted out in our garden ever since (at least 5 years). They don't always die...

I haven't had a Christmas tree in decades. The only "decorations" I put up are lots of flowers and greenery. I'm a co - owner of an Edinburgh private garden- there's masses of holly, ivy , conifers and other greenery and the gardener prunes a lot of it back at this time of year.

Last year however I bought a tiny M&S potted tree with Percy Pig decorations. It was planted in our own garden and is doing fine but I wouldn't dream of uprooting it h this year.

I miss the pine smell

Diffuse essential oils?

We did this and loved it! I feel really guilty about the dead Christmas tree - find it very sad. We loved our alive Christmas tree and super lovely when it started to bud. Although I think the stats on them surviving isn’t great and they now only let you have them for 2 weeks!

I've heard it all now! So you'll pay for a tree to be grown, uprooted, transported to your home, collected after a month where its probably half dead, transported back to the forest, replanted and same every year? How the heck is that eco friendly? Either buy a fake tree and get years of use or decorate a plant. Honestly some people will fall for anything!

I played the role of a Christmas tree in my nursery play.

I was chopped down by a boy called John, then dragged along the floor, stood in a bucket and the other children put tinsel on me.

It was really traumatic and I still think about it.

So all in all for a tree to go through this repeatedly would be pretty harsh, speaking from experience.

My fake tree is 20 years old. It still looks fab. It doesn't have that lovely fresh Christmas tree smell of a real tree, but I can see us getting a lot more years out of it. If it keeps going for another few years then I think it's more environmentally friendly than a real tree.

I'm sticking with buying a real tree, which is grown locally and will be collected by the council in the new year and composted.

I also have a small wooden tree which looks as if it is made of branches and twigs and sits on a table. I bought it 24 years ago when my oldest child was 6 months old and crawling everywhere and I was worried about her pulling a real one down and/or eating the needles.

I have never heard of this but I am quietly smiling to myself at all the MNers whose empathy extends to trees :o

A couple of my friends have the spiral wooden one. One bought, one home made. They look lovely in their own way but oh, forgive me, it's just not the same! I couldn't do it. You can arrange them either in a spiral or with the branches in different angles to look more like a real tree.

I bought a fake one when I first moved out of home as it's what we'd always had. But I've always wanted a real one and for the last few years that's what we've got. I wouldn't go back to plastic now but I'd rather have a plastic one than a wooden spiral.

I’ve never had a real cut tree. Just feels wrong to me to cut down a living tree. However one year I had a small pot grown blue spruce which I planted out (pot grown so no root damage) and it’s grown lovely in the garden since. I only have space for a small tree this year so will be doing the same again. However this works for me as I have a large garden and space for full grown trees.

I’ve never had a real cut tree. Just feels wrong to me to cut down a living tree.

As a keen gardener I understand that but not all the paper in my house is 100% recycled, I have wooden furniture and floorboards etc. I don’t buy the eco argument against cut trees- it carbon captured for the 2-5 years it grew, and when we’re done with it we’ll shred the green and use it to mulch the rhododendrons, and use the wood chippings elsewhere.

It’s ridiculous to think that the Christmas tree farmer would simply let them all grow on into a new forest if we didn’t buy them, they’re doing it to make money. If there was no market to sell the trees then they wouldn’t have been planted in the first place.

Yummypumpkin so sorry to laugh at your traumatic experience but I am 😂

We have a real tree and it goes for compost after Christmas. Never owned an artificial one. It doesn't appeal to me any more than having fake flowers does, or fake houseplants. It's a lovely natural object, the artificial ones are very clever but not my thing.
Things growing and being harvested and replaced (in places where not much else grows) is not necessarily unsustainable. If you want to save a tree it's better not to erat meat.

How on earth can a tree go from being outside in the cold, to living in a house for a month, central heated or blazing fire, then out again in the cold etc......
It sounds a bit of a fib from the company, tbh.