FESTIVE ILLUMINATIONS

The UK is lucky enough to have some fantastic, high-quality Christmas tree growers. We went and visited a supplier in Kent a few years ago. Ever since, we have ordered year on year, and have never been disappointed with the quality and service. A 3rd generation Christmas tree grower, our supplier hand prunes the trees, to ensure they grow ‘full and fluffy’. They do not come delivered packed on a pallet, therefore are not squashed and damaged in transit, and are usually cut the day before delivery to us.

We are a family-run limited company and are not part of any local councils. However, we work with various town and city schemes and councils to provide lights for your local areas, such as Pulborough Parish Council and Chichester BID.

We cover over 20 towns and villages in Sussex. Click here to download our list of areas.

Tree Recycling Once the trees have been taken down, our team unwire the lights, the trees are then chipped down into a mulch and used on our local farm. Seedlings and Chemicals Our supplier is a member of the British Christmas Tree Growers Association. The seed is sourced from registered stands within the appropriate native ranges for the species concerned, typically Jura Mountains for Norway Spruce and Caucasus (Georgia) for the Nordman. There are no UK seed orchards for Christmas trees. The trees are raised from seed at Oakover Nurseries, Charing, Kent before transplanting into our suppliers fields. Their husbandry uses agrochemicals approved by Pesticide Safety Directive.

We source real 5-6ft Norway spruces, UK-grown, wired with a set of warm white lights onto the tree, installed to the front of your building, plugged it into the nearest internal plug socket. We'll then come back in the New Year to take down the tree, take the lights off and recycle the tree back into the earth.

We install in over 30 Towns and Villages in Sussex, over a limited 5-week period from 1st November, therefore we operate a tight schedule to complete all installations before December. Once we have completed an area, it is not guaranteed we will return for late orders. We cannot guarantee individual installation date/times for every order, due to differing factors out of our control. We do not typically install external trees in December, please bear this in mind before ordering. The trees will stay healthy until Christmas when installed in November.

Lights will be plugged into a standard 13-amp indoor plug socket, which can be fed through most doors and windows, and extended as far as needed. External plug sockets are not required.

Customer's must ensure they have landlord's permission for 2 small inconspicuous fixings drilled into the front of building. Details of fixings are available upon request, please email eloise@festiveilluminations.info

We can fix into standard brick, stone, mortar or wood building fronts, however cannot fix into tile or metal clad buidlings. We cannot fix onto flat rooves or chimneys due to lack of fixing points and safety.

In the New Year, we will come back around to take down external Christmas trees and recycle them back into the earth. Once you are no longer 'feeling festive' we suggest unplugging the Christmas tree, and tucking the plug in a bag into the tree (if safe to do so), or leaving on your doorstep ready for collection. Do not take the trees down yourself. External tree lights, plugs and fixings are owned by Festive Illuminations Ltd and are installed on a hire basis only.

Please contact us with any questions. If you are a new customer and are unsure about the positioning or front of your building, send us a photo and we will advise you on how we can help.

We can supply generally any size up to 20ft. A standard residential internal Christmas tree is around 6 or 7ft.

Generally we use Norway Spruces for external trees, these are a more traditional Christmas tree, the 'spikey' variety. When they are outside at height for up to 6 weeks they don't tend to shed their needles. We'd recommend a Nordman Fir for internal trees, these are 'non-drop' variety, and have a softer/fluffier texture.

Christmas trees are living plants so show it some love, treat it like fresh cut flower: • Cut 1-2 inches off the bottom to allow it to soak up water. • Position it carefully in to keep it stable and straight. • Fill the stand up with water. Over the first few days it will drink lots, so keep it topped up. • After a few days or so the water consumption will slow down. We recommend checking it every 3-4 days, keeping it topped up. • Keeping your tree watered will ensure it remains fresh smelling and the needles will be less likely to drop as quickly. It should last around 5-6 weeks if looked after well. Do not let it dry out! • Ensure your tree is in the coolest place possible. It will likely die quicker near an open fire, radiator or other heat source.

This depends on the look you are going for, we love the look of lots of fairy lights, as if they are entwinned in the tree, rather than rings sat on the branches which you can see very clearly. We would recommend 200-bulb for a small tree, anything up to 5ft, 360-bulb for 6-7ft and 480-bulb for 8ft, and adding on more sets if you have a larger tree. You can of course add more than 1 set if you love lights more than we do and you can also get connectable lights, which come in shorter sections such as 5m, which plug into another set, and eventually a power source. Lights come in different lengths, depending on the spacing between the bulbs, and space to the power source, however these are our recommendations based on experience with our lights.

We would recommend a water holding stand. As you will read in our interal tree care instructions, Christmas trees should be treated like fresh cut flowers and need to be watered regularly to last the period of Christmas. Cinco stands are the stands we use, there are different sizes for varying trees. We'd recommend: • Cinco 6 is for up to 6ft • Cinco 8 for up to 9ft • Cinco 10 for anything over 9ft. Our Christmas trees are products of nature, therefore one 7ft tree may be less full and a smaller trunk than another.