How to choose your Christmas tree!

Every year, the same challenge: you’ve got to choose your Christmas tree and bring joy to the house for grown-ups and kids alike!

Decorating it is an important part of the process, and is truly fun to work out as a family or with friends and colleagues, but the first awaited step is the choosing of the tree itself!

The most common Christmas tree

The Nordmann fir has supplanted the famed spruce in this position.

Up until recently, spruce was the historical tree used for the Christmas feast, but the resilience of the Nordmann fir and the fact that it doesn’t lose its needles made it an instant winner when it appeared on the market.

Even though it isn’t as fragrant, it became one of the keys to a successful Christmas.

There are also other varieties that are sometimes harder to find:

• Omorika, appreciated for its silvery shimmering leaves.
• Nobilis, with blueish hues.
• Korean with green and silver needles.
• Grandis, a very dense bearing and strong agreeable fragrance.
• Pungens, which bears long, prickly needles and is also very fragrant.

Different ways to go about purchasing a Christmas tree

Christmas tree cut at the base

This is the most common form, certainly because it is very convenient and doesn’t take up much space.

• Ideal for apartments.
• Easy to carry around.
• Can be attached to a log split in 2 in which a hole matching the size of the trunk is drilled.
• Cannot be transplanted to the garden.

Christmas tree in containers

The Christmas tree bought with its root clump in a container is the only one that can successfully be transplanted to the garden. It is often selected specifically for this reason.

• Heavy and unwieldy, it won’t topple over as easily as other options.
• Can be watered and thus is much less prone to losing its needles.
• Can be transplanted to the garden, simply follow the tips listed below.

How to choose between artificial and natural Christmas trees

A natural Christmas tree has the advantage of being more respectful of our planet. Apart from the fact that it must be transported from the store to your house, it is produced and grown specifically for the Christmas season.

• It grew up in a natural environment.
• It builds up on and feeds the ecosystem.
• It is 100% biodegradable.

Artificial Christmas trees use raw materials sourced from the petroleum industry and uses non-renewable materials that pollute our planet both during the production stage and during disposal and recycling.

Is it wrong to cut young trees for Christmas?

No, because it isn’t as though forests were cut down in preserved environments. These trees are grown by man in managed forests and their purpose is to make Christmas remember that the key to everlasting life enters the world that day!

How to transplant a Christmas tree to your garden

Yes, it is possible to do this if it was purchased in a pot with its root ball. It is perfectly possible to plant it in the ground after Christmas.

Best if it doesn’t stay for too long indoors, in your house.
Plant it just after the feast days and preferably while the weather doesn’t freeze.

If you replant your tree and use it again in the following year, you’ll be compounding your support of the environment!

• Follow our advice to succeed in planting it for sure.

Recycling your Christmas tree

It’s very important that, after having used it, you dispose of your Christmas tree in a specialized composting center.

Recycling centers are perfect, if your municipality hasn’t prepared anything more specific.

That way, it’ll go back to fertilizing the soil.

Merry Christmas!

Credits for images shared to Nature & Garden (all edits by Gaspard Lorthiois):
Ornament shared by _Alicja_ under © CC0 1.0
Tree forest shared by LloydTheVoid under © CC0 1.0
Nativity shared by Lawrence OP under © CC BY-NC-ND 2.0