FLS trees providing festive cheer for cities and towns across the UK

Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) grown super-sized Christmas trees will be lighting up towns and cities across the UK this festive season.

FLS is providing civic Christmas trees from Mearns and Durris forest to locations across the UK, including Northampton, Leicester, Leeds, Sheffield, Sunderland and across the Scottish Borders.

The towering Sitka, standing between 30 to 60 feet, have been open grown - away from other trees so competition has been limited. This has resulted in each tree developing into the distinctive and ideal Christmas tree shape.

A Sitka Christmas tree is also hardy enough to make it through the holiday season while maintaining its good condition.

FLS Harvesting Supervisor Tommy Murphy said:

“The trees are carefully selected to make sure they will stand up to public scrutiny from all angles. We don’t want a scruffy tree as a centrepiece for a town or city.

“We worked with the contractor, Elveden Estate, who undertook a survey of candidate trees in Durris, Kirkhill and Mearns. The selected trees were then tagged and geo referenced.

“The trees are carefully and expertly felled to avoid any damage before being loaded up onto flatbed trucks and heading off on their journeys to take pride of place in squares across the UK.”

Like all FLS produced timber, those being used as Christmas trees have originated from sustainably managed forests that have been independently certified and audited.

Tommy added:

“We want to ensure continued sustainable timber production from our forests so that we can keep providing Christmas trees into the future.

“For every tree cut down, more are planted and managed in a way that both produces timber and maintains or enhances a forest’s overall resilience and productivity while also providing good conditions for the rich variety of wildlife that lives there and people that come to enjoy our woodlands.”

The vast majority of FLS timber is grown to standard dimensions and is cut to size for use in areas including construction and fencing. However, a proportion, on account of its size or species, falls into that we term specialist timber where the marketing and sales team work with customers to meet often unique orders.

FLS Niche Marketing & Hardwood Development Manager Douglas Halliday said:

“Along with the Christmas trees we have provided timber for ship masts, a replica iron age canoe and the construction of crannogs.

“Being open and agile to take advantage of opportunities from specialist and niche sales is essential and can led to establishing new customers and markets.”

Notes to editors

1. Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) manages forests and land owned by Scottish Ministers in a way that supports and enables economically sustainable forestry; conserves and enhances the environment; delivers benefits for people and nature; and supports Scottish Ministers in their stewardship of Scotland's national forests and land.
2. Home - Forestry and Land Scotland
3. Media enquiries to media@forestryandland.gov.scot