National Trust Longshaw Estate Chrsitmas tree feature
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00:00Hi everybody, my name's Chris Milner and I'm a ranger at the National Trust Estate at Longshore.
00:07We're selling Christmas trees at the moment, we've been selling trees for just over 50 years now
00:12and I've been doing it for probably just over 15 although you forget after a while. We've got
00:18quite a wide variety of trees, this is a Nordman Fir which is probably the most popular type.
00:25There's various different sizes as well from four foot up to about 10 foot I think we've got
00:30some slightly bigger ones as well for parish councils and people like that.
00:34The Nordmans are really good at retaining their their needles and in fact all the trees that we
00:39sell are pretty good for that. We've got Fraser Firs as well and some Lodgepole Pines. We also
00:46stock trees with roots on if you want a rooted tree you can come and choose one and dig it up
00:52and we've also got some trees in our own little nursery that we grow ourselves
00:57that people can cut closer to the time if they want to reserve that tree.
01:02All the trees are sustainably grown, they come from British suppliers so they're either grown
01:07in Scotland or some even closer to home just in Cheshire so they haven't travelled a long way.
01:15The secret to looking after a Christmas tree really is just treat it with a bit of care
01:21and when you take it inside at home try not to place it next to a radiator or an open fire or
01:27anything like that you want to try and keep it away from heat sources if you can. The best thing
01:32to do is cut a little sliver off the bottom of the stem it just opens the capillaries a bit and
01:38if you've got a holder that can hold water just treat it like a house plant keep watering it
01:44throughout the Christmas period keep topping the water up in in the bowl at the bottom and that
01:49will keep it nice and fresh. So we probably sell just over a thousand trees and some people have
01:57been coming for many years to buy Christmas trees from us and supporting the work of the National
02:03Trust really the profits from the Christmas tree sales get put back into our work in the Peak
02:09District so by buying a tree from us a Christmas tree from us you're probably planting lots of
02:15trees out in the countryside looking after footpaths as well and gates and stiles
02:23work on the moorlands we do a lot of moorland restoration work where sphagnum mosses are planted
02:31hay meadows we've done quite a lot of hay meadow restoration work
02:35in the UK we've probably lost over 95% of our hay meadows since the Second World War so
02:40it's trying to put flowers back into the countryside as well as trees so the money
02:45you spend on a Christmas tree with a National Trust really helps nature and wildlife in the
02:49Peak District. So as well as the Christmas trees we've got our little sales shed here we've got
02:55lots of wooden snowmen and ornaments for trees wreaths all made by our volunteers they put a lot
03:02of hard time and effort into making these they're all made from sustainable materials as well so
03:09there's plenty of bits of ash tree from the estate bits of pine tree and the foliage for
03:15the wreaths has come from some of the some of the tree work that we've done so yeah
03:20all nice lovely ornaments to adorn your Christmas tree.