Meet the man who rents out Christmas trees for a living
Renting a Christmas tree allows you to have a beautiful living tree in your home each year, while also contributing to its growth afterwards. Paul Keen, a horticulturist and co-founder of Rental Claus, talks to House Beautiful about how the scheme works — and why trees are for life, not just for Christmas.
My family ran a farm in Gloucestershire and I've always been interested in growing things. As a young boy, I helped in the fields and especially enjoyed riding tractors with my dad. I was 10 years old when my older brother opened and ran a farm shop and, years later, after studying agricultural and environmental science at Nottingham University, I took over Primrose Vale, a 35-acre PYO [pick your own] farm in Cheltenham.
When I met Craig Tennock, my business partner, we quickly realised we shared a love of the environment and talked endlessly about setting up a company. Our initial idea was to sell cut Christmas trees, so I planted a corner of the farm with Norway spruce, after which there were 30 saplings left over.
I popped these into individual pots and they flourished, which is when we hit on the idea of hiring out pot-grown trees and Rental Claus, our new venture, was born. We deliver locally, and although we do use pesticides to deal with aphids, we keep them to a minimum so as to cause as little environmental damage as possible. And as our trees are reused multiple times, we only need a fifth of the land that would be required for the same number of cut trees.
Many of our customers hire the same tree every December, and it's become a much-loved festive tradition – some even name their tree! At the farm, a team of four prunes, shapes and labels them in autumn. They bring the trees in from the fields and then return them the following January.
Our pot-grown Norway spruce are at their best when they're four to six feet tall. After about 12 years, when they're old and 'characterful', they're better off in the ground. Customers can then either plant the trees in their gardens or we'll recycle them at the farm, using the mulch in the fields to enrich the soil, so nothing is ever wasted.
The shorter the distance between where a tree has been grown and where the customer lives, the better – that minimises both its carbon footprint and theirs. This year, we have 8,000 pot-grown trees in production.
We also have Nordmann fir, among other varieties, but as they have bigger roots, they aren't suited to pots. Craig now lives in Canada and consults for the business, and we have outlets in Swindon, Bristol, Worcestershire, and London, although there are no plans to expand further. Our well-maintained trees live long, happy lives. We firmly believe that a tree is for life, not just for Christmas.
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