Sustainable Tree Farming

Thompson’s have been growing our own Christmas trees on the Isle of Wight for over 20 years now. A small team of knowledgeable, experienced, dedicated staff, lead by our head grower Peter, manage a 130 acre nursery that has close to 100,000 trees growing.

We are members of The British Christmas Tree Growers Association, who believe in the sustainable farming of Christmas trees. Did you know that the trees grow from taking carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas CO2, out of the atmosphere. One Christmas tree will then release enough clean oxygen for at least 18 people!

For every tree that’s cut, another is planted, so there’s always a constant cycle of growing Christmas trees. This Spring we planted 7000 Nordman Fir trees and 3500 Spruce, some of which will still be in the ground 20 years from now.

We buy the trees as 3 year old seedling from a selected provenance, which means where the seeds are sourced from around Europe. This is important because the provenance make sure we get a better quality tree from seed. The seedlings are then planted in a 2 litre pot using peat free compost, grow on for a further year, then planted the following spring in uncultivated ground. The potted Christmas trees that we grow are all now grown in 100% Peat Free compost

Our Christmas Trees are sprayed with an insecticide which is silicone based, which means it's more environmentally friendly, especially for the bees that live on the farm! We use a fertilizer that is seaweed based, which is applied around the base of the tree and not sprayed, so we're not using any harmful chemicals on our trees.

• Handy Christmas tree Guide
• Eco-friendly Wildlife Haven
• Carbon Footprint