Christmas trees in Brighton and Hove: The Hanover Christmas Tree Company blog

December 1st 2011 We're in the paper!

Nice little article and photo in the Brighton Argus today of the Hanover Christmas Tree Company delivering a Christmas tree to St Peters Primary School. It was part of a wider article about how well businesses are faring in the run up to Christmas 2011. It was our second media appearance this week, having done an interview on BBC Sussex radio about this year's shortage of tall Christmas trees.

July 7th 2011 Ideas for a charity to support for Christmas 2011

The Hanover Christmas Tree Company is proud to work with and support the Hanover Community Association in Brighton, a relationship that started in 2008 and one that we hope will continue for years to come.

For those who don’t know it, the Association is a local charity working to improve the area of Hanover in Brighton and the quality of life of the people who live here. The focus of its activities is the Hanover Community Centre, an important hub for the local area where there are all sorts of events on every day of the week, from mother and toddler classes to film screenings, not to mention its annual beer festival. You can learn more from the Hanover Community Association website.

For Christmas 2011, we would like to add another good cause to the charities that we support. This is for a number of reasons, not least the fact that Christmas is a time to think about people who aren’t as fortunate as us. It seems a great idea to know that when you buy a Christmas tree you are helping someone else even in some small way.

But the question is, what charity? We would like there to be some connection to our business – whether that is a link to Christmas, to trees or to people. It could be something social or environmental or a mix of both – or it could be some other connected cause that we haven’t thought of yet. We would be happy for it to be at home or overseas.

If you have any ideas about charities that you think we might like to consider supporting this Christmas, then please email us.

June 12th 2011 How we started selling Christmas trees in Brighton

The Hanover Christmas Tree Company started selling Christmas trees in Brighton and Hove in 2007.

We had often thought about it: each year, carrying our Christmas tree (one carrying the trunk and one the top of the tree) home from the Wyevale garden centre up by Brighton racecourse to our home in Hanover, and wondering if there might be an easier and less painful way to do it. In previous years, when we had a car, it wasn’t much better: the following days would be spent brushing needles out of the back of the car.

I was interested and unsure about whether people would purchase a Christmas trees online without having the chance to select it themselves, not least since I knew how choosy we could get when we bought our tree.

I was also interested in the idea of making the whole process more sustainable – by reducing the transport miles associated with bringing the trees from the farm, cutting down on local car trips by offering a delivery service, and adding a collection and recyling service to complete the package.

So in late 2007, I placed an order for 100 freshly cut trees from a Christmas tree farm near Brighton. I then set up a really simple Christmas tree retail website and had flyers printed and delivered to homes in the neighbourhood to advertise the new service.

When the Christmas trees arrived in Brighton on the back of a large truck I realised just how much space they were going to take. And I remembered how heavy they were.

My friend Livio and I carried each of the 100 trees through the front door of my small, mid-terrace Victorian house, on through the back door and into the garden. There was soon no space to move and our small Brighton back garden looked like a forest of Christmas trees!

We soon started taking orders for Christmas trees throughout Brighton and Hove and found byover the following weeks that we needed to order in extra Christmas trees. Fortunately, by Christmas the Christmas trees had all found happy homes across Brighton – including the extra ones we’d ordered – and luckily we only had positive feedback from our customers.

Less fortunately, our hallway carpet was pretty much ruined by around 300 Christmas tree journeys through the house (we are still picking up needles from that year today!), and we decided to find an alternative Christmas tree storage location for 2008!

We are now in our fifth year supplying Christmas trees to Brighton and Hove homes and workplaces. Please visit our main Christmas tree website to sign up to our mailing list and we’ll let you know when our Christmas trees go on sale!

June 10th 2011 Introducing the Brighton Christmas Trees blog

Thank you for visiting the Hanover Christmas Tree Company blog. Here you will be able to find out all about Christmas trees in Brighton and Hove.

It’s nearly mid-June, so you might think it an odd time of year to be thinking about Christmas trees! But we are already starting to plan ahead for this winter. And of course many Christmas tree farms in the UK, including those where we source our locally grown trees from, work hard all year round to make sure that you have a beautiful tree come Christmas time.

So I wanted to set up a blog to discuss anything and everything to do with Christmas trees and add to it through the year.

I would like this blog to provide some useful and interesting information for anyone looking to buy a Christmas tree, including how to make sure you get a decent tree and how to make sure you make the most of it throughout the Christmas season.

I also hope to explore the history of Christmas trees, how they are grown, the environmental impacts both good and bad, from the farming methods used to the distance they are transported once they are cut. I will be looking at questions that are often raised by people buying a Christmas tree in Brighton, including whether it is better to buy a tree with or without roots, and whether it is better to buy a real tree or an artificial tree (or indeed no Christmas tree at all!).

I will also be talking about Christmas tree stands, lights and decorations and anything else that we sell in our online Christmas tree shop.