Quick Tips to keep your tree looking fresh
Water – The easiest and most important way to keep a tree looking good is to keep it well watered.
Placement – Keep it away from radiators, or if that’s not possible turn it off, and put it somewhere where you don’t brush past it as these are the primary causes of needle loss.
Time – The earlier you put up your tree the more care it will need, for a stress free year delay putting it up for those few extra days.
The Long Story
One of the most common questions we get asked is “how do I keep my tree looking fresh?” and there are a few relatively easy steps that you can take to help the tree retain its majesty.
Before the tree is in the house
If you haven’t already put the tree up there are a few things that we can do that will really pay dividends in the long run and the first one is controversial. Do you need to put it up yet? Every day that you can delay reduces the stress on the tree that causes needle loss. If you can bring yourself to wait, leave it in the garden in the net where it can continue to breath in all the moisture in the air.
Once you have decided you can wait no longer, make a fresh cut across the base of the tree taking off approximately 1cm of trunk. This opens up the pores and enables the tree to take up water from the stand more effectively
Where to put the tree
Indoors is not a natural place for a tree, but the happier you can make it the healthier it will look come Christmas day. The two things trees really hate are heat and people brushing past. Try and place the tree in as cooler spot as possible, if it has to go next to a radiator consider turning it off or at the very least as low as is tolerable. Brushing past a tree will not cause much damage whilst it is fresh, but once it begins to dry out the needles are almost looking for an excuse to fall off so putting it somewhere where you are not walking past it constantly would be a big help. If you have come home with a slightly wider tree than you were expecting you can always trim the branches that are going up against the wall, it won’t harm the tree and can free up those extra few inches to enable you to squeeze past.
Once the tree is up
Now that you have the tree stood up and unnetted the first and most important thing to do is give it a good drink of water. There are always lots of stories about adding things to the water to help the needles last longer, but in our experience just plain old tap water is the best solution. When you first put the tree up you may be surprised to see how much a tree will drink, you can expect to be topping up the stand everyday although this will reduce as the days pass. All of our stands hold water and it is the safest and easiest way to keep giving the tree what it needs, if you haven’t got a water retaining stand you can spray the needles with water but please be careful of any electric lights.
Next you can stand back and admire the tree in all its glory, but wait to put the decorations on! Over the first 24 hours the tree is going to open out and settle into its natural shape, if you decorate too early you could find yourself having to move decorations around as they have touched the floor or each other.
If you can do all of that then you can give yourself a pat on the back and a mince pie, whilst your tree out shines your neighbours. Just don’t forget to keep watering it, we wouldn’t want all that hard work to go to waste.