With the introductions complete in the first post here Christmas Tree, and everything cool with the world at this special time of year, it seems the done thing to talk about the humble Christmas tree types that are available to all that enjoy their presence in their homes.

Well, as everyone probably already knows, but I’ll repeat it here again for posterity, there are two main types of Christmas tree that people erect in their living rooms and adorn with all manner of decorations, lights and edible goodies. These are the real Christmas trees and the artificial Christmas trees. Now you can break these down quite a bit into their respective subdivisions, so let’s do exactly that. In this post I’ll look at the real variety and then in a later post, I’ll concentrate on the artificial ones.

Real Christmas Trees

Real Christmas trees are those that are derived from living fir trees. You can get the ones that are simply lopped off the top of the living tree and these ones will only last for a couple of weeks indoors. Their needles drop and make a mess everywhere, but they smell nice and are authentic. Cats love to climb up them and mess up the decorations so watch out!

There is a variation on this type of Christmas tree that is specially treated so the needles don’t drop so readily. They are much better, although some people don’t like the chemicals used to do the treating and the do cost more. The upside is very few needles are dropped before the festive season is over and the tree can be discarded.

There are other real Christmas trees that come with their root ball still attached and are sold as living trees, which in fact they are! These will last a whole lot longer, but are a whole lot more expensive to match. The advantages are that the needles don’t drop as long as you remember to water the tree (its alive don’t forget!) and don’t have it in too warm a room where it will dry out quickly. After the festive season is over, you can, if you want to, take the tree out into the garden and plant it. Its hit or miss whether the tree will recover from its spell indoors and take once again to a real life habitat and many families are disappointed when the tree dies a couple months later.

But sometimes it does take and grows away at a rate of knots! Within a few years, that eight or nine foot sapling will have grown into a 30 foot monster and have taken over the garden! Which is fine if you have a big garden, but I’ve seen so many tiny urban front gardens of less than six feet square with a behemoth threatening to overshadow not only the owner’s house but their neighbours either side as well!

But that’s all part of the fun of experimentation with a special tree! Until the next post where I’ll talk about some of the artificial tree options, adieu!

Christmas Tree