zWhen we only had the Norway spruce Christmas tree, the end of the festive season involved trailing a half bare Christmas tree through your house dropping needles all the way. It took several hours to hoover up the mess and even still, an unprotected foot could be stabbed, well into the summer months.

With the advent on the modern, non-drop Christmas trees, especially the Nordmann Fir, this has all changed.

You can expect to remove the tree after I month with 95% of the needles attached, and even those that drop are longer and softer and less likely to cause pain later.

The advances have been made in three ways:

1. New tree species introductions such as the Nordmann Fir
2. Better breeding of these species, selecting for the needle retention trait
3. Better knowledge of how to care for the Christmas tree after harvest.

This article is about point 3.

When you think about the care of a cut Christmas tree you must think as if it is a cut flower.

It should be transported from forest to house as fast as physically possible. More than 2 weeks and deterioration will occur.

When the tree arrives at your house, if you are not ready to set it up you must keep it outside and preferably in a bucket of water. It is ok to keep the packaging net on at this stage.

When you are ready to take your Christmas tree in, you should cut of about 1” (25mm) from the bottom. This exposes fresher plant cells that will be more able to draw up the water.

Now comes another major modern advance. A huge range of Christmas tree stands that can contain water have been produced. These stands are a revelation, because all through the festive season your tree will absorb water. The hotter your room, the more water it will use. You should allow for 1-2 litres a day at the start. This will drop as the season progresses.

The best Christmas tree stands are an American product called Cinco. They are virtually un-breakable, are very stable and have a massive water reservoir (depending on size, from 3.75 litres up to a whopping 7.8 litres). The final cool feature, which is surprisingly useful, is that there is a drip catcher round the rim, so avoiding accidental water spills.

You should place you tree in a cool room or cool part of the room. If that is not possible (and is certainly not possible in our house) then you should try and keep the area as cool as possible. Consider turning down, or off any radiators or heaters next to the tree. You can turn your heating down or off through the night. If you have vented heating, then consider blocking any vents right beside your Christmas tree.

You can tell how happy a Nordmann Christmas tree is by looking at it. As the tree stresses out due to having run out of water or the room is too hot, the needles start to curl upwards. Because the underside of the needles has the 2 blue lines on them, the trees overall colour changes from dark green to a, not unpleasant, blue green. The more blue the tree, the less happy it is.

If you follow all this advice your real Christmas tree will be looking nearly as good when the big clear up takes place as it did when you first put it in place. You can expect very few needles to drop and even then they are easily hoovered up.

People ask me what to with the old tree. The most ecological thing is to re-use it in your own garden. Use secateurs to cut it up and use it for plant supports, mulch or even as a refuge for garden animals (as recommended by Bill Odie in his spring watch programmes). It will eventually break down to compost.