The Christmas-tree grower
GROWING Christmas trees came about fortuitously,' says Andrew Ingram of The Tree Barn in south Oxfordshire. 'I took over the family farm in 1970, in my early twenties -I'm 75 now and there was a hedgerow that needed thickening up, so we chose to do it with Christmas trees. We were a traditional farm with Jersey cows, but we couldn't compete with Friesians, so I had to sell the herd.
'I cast around for something else to do and noticed the trees were growing rather well, so I made the wise move of joining the British Christmas Tree Growers Association. Everything I've learned since that moment has been through them. I've been very fortunate. I found out I was on exactly the right soil type to grow them-free draining, slightly acidic and not in a frost pocket. I also happen to live in a place called Christmas Common and, if you can't sell Christmas trees from Christmas Common, there's something wrong with you!'
The Ingrams plant about 17,000 trees a year, of which they sell between 7,000 and 8,000 direct from the shop run by Mr Ingram's wife, Jane, together with hand-crafted decorations. They supply big display trees for London hotels and Oxford colleges and have provided the Downing Street tree three times.
'The ideal tree should have an almost perfect triangular shape,' Mr Ingram advises. 'It needs to be dense, with lots of branches, and the colour is important-you want a good, strong, dark green. When I started, we were growing Norway spruce, but the market has changed. Now, it's mainly Nordmann fir.
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Denne historien er fra December 13 - 20, 2023 (Double Issue)-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Happiness in small things
Putting life into perspective and forces of nature in farming
Colour vision
In an eye-baffling arrangement of geometric shapes, a sinister-looking clown and a little girl, Test Card F is one of television’s most enduring images, says Rob Crossan
'Without fever there is no creation'
Three of the top 10 operas performed worldwide are by the emotionally volatile Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, who died a century ago. Henrietta Bredin explains how his colourful life influenced his melodramatic plot lines
The colour revolution
Toxic, dull or fast-fading pigments had long made it tricky for artists to paint verdant scenes, but the 19th century ushered in a viridescent explosion of waterlili
Bullace for you
The distinction between plums, damsons and bullaces is sweetly subtle, boiling down to flavour and aesthetics, but don’t eat the stones, warns John Wright
Lights, camera, action!
Three remarkable country houses, two of which have links to the film industry, the other the setting for a top-class croquet tournament, are anything but ordinary
I was on fire for you, where did you go?
In Iceland, a land with no monks or monkeys, our correspondent attempts to master the art of fishing light’ for Salmo salar, by stroking the creases and dimples of the Midfjardara river like the features of a loved one
Bravery bevond belief
A teenager on his gap year who saved a boy and his father from being savaged by a crocodile is one of a host of heroic acts celebrated in a book to mark the 250th anniversary of the Royal Humane Society, says its author Rupert Uloth
Let's get to the bottom of this
Discovering a well on your property can be viewed as a blessing or a curse, but all's well that ends well, says Deborah Nicholls-Lee, as she examines the benefits of a personal water supply
Sing on, sweet bird
An essential component of our emotional relationship with the landscape, the mellifluous song of a thrush shapes the very foundation of human happiness, notes Mark Cocker, as he takes a closer look at this diverse family of birds
