European Gardening: Your Christams tree this year? And your thoughts about it??, 1 by rannveig

rannveig wrote:
Hello everyone! I always have a live tree - after it's served it's purpose inside I cut off the branches and use them to shelter my tender plants (I actually collect most of the trees in the street too for the same use). The trees are collected and shredded and I shred the branches in spring and use as mulch so I can't see any waste there ...... So I agree with Mike on this one - while they're growing they're binding carbon dioxide and for every tree that is cut down they plant more so the live ones are definately more environmentally friendly in my opinion. Besides the smell of a live tree is essential to me. We usually manage to keep them from drying out - we cut the base so the "wound" is fresh, put it in boiling water to open up the "veins" and then water it with hot water to keep them open ..... it works very well as long as we don't forget to water it! Bought a bigger base this year that holds more water since I did tend to forget to water ;-)

Here's a photo. My daughters did most of the decorating on their own - Except for a few fragile ornaments and the highest branches .....