flypig.co.uk

The 6th January is traditionally the day Christmas decorations are dismantled in the UK. In Finland it's the 13th January, partly because the Christmas lights are needed to counteract the shorter daylight hours and partly to avoid angering the Yulegoat. But I'm in the UK so this weekend Joanna and I took down our Christmas decorations.

In previous years we've always tried to get a Christmas tree with roots. Our success rate in keeping it alive until the next Christmas currently stands at zero percent.

This year I went out of my way to care for our Christmas tree, carefully keeping the soil in its pot moist with daily watering, avoiding bumps and bashes, not overburdening the branches with crazy decorative figurines.

It's definitely fared better than any of our previous trees and today I dug a hole in the back garden and planted it solidly.

Here are the three stages of its life I've so far been involved with, from left-to-right: sitting in our living room right after we introduced it; with decorations ready for Christmas; and now transplanted to our back garden.
 

I'm no gardener and I don't rate its chances highly, but I'd love it to survive. Not only would it be wonderful to have a Norwegian Spruce living in our garden, but it would also feel like a real achievement to have a multi-year Christmas tree. I'm also counting this as one of the ecological acts needed to fulfil my New Year's Resolutions.

I'll report back later in the year on how the tree is doing. It feels like its success is now very much down to weather, nature and its will to survive. Maybe that's not the right way to look at these things, but that's why I'm not a gardener.