Sales of real Christmas trees reported strong at Wyevale
Wyevale Garden Centres report that Christmas spirits are high, after the first of its festive weekends generated strong sales across trending categories, bucking the UK’s reported low consumer confidence.
Wyevale has seen year-on-year sales boom across poinsettias, pot-grown Christmas trees and cut Christmas trees. They also report that the sale of shorter and slimmer trees are expected to soar this season as ‘Generation Rent’ opt for styles more suited to a limited living space.
As a direct response to growing consumer demand and more conscious Christmas spend, Wyevale Garden Centres has brought in an extra line of its exclusive Swedish style Nordman Fir, catering to those in search of a lighter framed tree in a variety of heights. The trees’ unique, delicate frame is the result of tailored in-the-field pruning, creating larger gaps between branches and taking up less living space in breadth compared to other varieties.
David Mitchell, real Christmas tree expert at Wyevale Garden Centres points out that with house size shrinking, the big trend over the last few years has been towards slimmer, smaller trees: “Sales on the Swedish Nordman Fir variety were up 100% from 2015-16, with numbers expected to double to an impressive 30,000 this year. Our smaller varieties currently account for over 25% of total Christmas tree sales across the Centres, with complementary miniature tree types such as the Picea Conica becoming an increasingly popular add-on purchase (currently up 300% on sales),” said David.
Wyevale has also launched an exclusive Real Tree Feed, helping trees to stay fresher for longer, drop fewer needles and look greener. Tested and designed by Chrysal International, one of the world’s largest distributors of flower and plant care products, the tree feed will be offered with every real Christmas tree sold at Wyevale Garden Centres.
One of the biggest trends of the season has been seen in the sale of houseplants and Ciara Sheridan, houseplants buyer at Wyevale Garden Centres points out strong growth in cacti plants as well as foliage houseplants, citrus and bonsai varieties.
Real Tree weekends will take place at Wyevale Garden Centres each weekend up till Christmas.
For more information, visit www.wyevalegardencentres.co.uk
