And I thought I had seen it all… A company called “London Christmas Tree Rental” is giving people an opportunity to rent a sustainable, pot grown Christmas tree. Yes, you read that correctly. It’s actually a cool idea considering the world we now live in. I’m trying to think of ways I can adopt the model in some of the other businesses I am a part of. Perhaps you can think of some interesting twist on your end that might work.
The model seems to be fairly simple and straight forward. They have a tree farm with potted trees. Consumers contract with the company to rent a tree of choice. The tree is then delivered to the home. They are given watering instructions and notes about how to keep the tree healthy and safe i.e. water every day and place it away from the radiator to ensure survival. They then come by and collect the tree or people can return it to a hub for a slight credit and it will go back to the Farm to be specially cared for until next year. And yes, you can request your same tree back the following year!
London Christmas Tree Rental was founded in 2018 by Jonathan Mearns and Catherine Loveless. It all started when walking the streets of London in January and weaving between the Christmas tree graveyards that Jonathan decided enough was enough. With 7 million trees going into landfill each year for the sake of 3 weeks of pleasure there must be a better way to do Christmas trees. So London Christmas Tree Rental was born, offering the opportunity to rent the same tree year on year.
The trees that they rent are Norway Spruce. Whilst these days the Nordmann Fir is the more popular type, if you want a pot grown tree that will be able to sustain growing larger than 4ft then the Norway Spruce is best, purely because the Nordmann’s root ball becomes too big to be grown successfully. The Spruce is the traditional tree that you would see in Trafalgar Square, it has a rich coniferous fragrance that depicts Christmas.
From what I’m learning the tree rental price starts at around $60 and goes up from there with a required $30 deposit on all trees. Oh yes, I should also mention, they are completely SOLD OUT of all inventory! You can learn more at their website HERE.
What happens to all the fully mature trees ? I’m assuming they are harvested for cash.
If so this is an excellent opportunity to get returns from a cash crop that is usually considered a long term investment.
Getting an annual return, albeit once a year from a crop of immature trees is a bonus