Tree’s a crowd!

Happy New Year Lil peeps! It seems the 2020 hangover continues with another lockdown. We hope you have had a good, peaceful festive period albeit not perhaps the one you might have planned.

The festive fun is over and we are all tidying up ready to dive into 2021. But what to do with the Christmas tree...?

If you rented one, have a reusable one or a live tree then disposal is not problem. It's estimated over 8 million trees are sold in the UK so quite a few folk are faced with what to do with it now. Heres a few ideas:

• If you have a garden or know someone who does you can cut your tree up into logs and sticks and create a woodpile. It makes a great home for wildlife such as minibeasts and even hedgehogs next autumn. Place the pile in a quiet sheltered corner, tucked under a hedge or bushes is ideal.

• Make your acidic-soil loving plants happy - strip the fronds and use to mulch for plants by adding a layer to the surface of the soil or pot around them. The needles are ericaceous, meaning that when they rot down, they are acidic so only some plants will like them. Blueberries, rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, conifers and heathers would be happy to have them. They take a long time to disintegrate but help keep the soil moist in drier periods too.

• Create a bird feeding station. Strip the needles off (see mulch above) and secure the trunk upright (you can plant it in a big pot with bricks in the base for weight or dig a hole and firm it in really well). Then hang bird feeders, apples on string or garlands of dried fruit. Grab your binoculars and watch the birds feast. They struggle at this time of year to find enough food foraging in the short daylight hours so they will appreciate your help.

• Real Christmas trees can be composted by taking them to a Recycling Centre or presenting them beside your brown bin on garden waste collection dates in January or February. Check out your dates here

• Got other ideas? Add them in the comments below and we’ll share