Christmas tree sellers are gearing up for their busiest week of the year as growers keep cool about increasing competition from overseas.

Demand is now at its peak with 4,000 real Christmas trees sold through Brighton Open Market alone in the three weeks to the big day.

The market is more competitive each year and Sussex growers are fighting back against foreign competition, producing better quality trees that last longer.

Consumers will no longer accept scraggy specimens whose needles drop as soon as they are indoors.

Best-sellers in the past have been the Norway spruce or the blue spruce but recently there has been a greater demand for the Nordman fir with its larger needles which don't fall so easily.

Most trees on sale in Sussex shops are from Norway or Denmark and have been transported across the North Sea in huge containers.

Wilderness Wood at Hadlow Down, near Uckfield, is a popular source of trees. It has a dig-your-own section with around 700 Norway and blue spruce available.

Owner Ann Yarrow said: "Naturally this is our biggest time of the year. This coming weekend will be the busiest. People love to walk in the woods select their own tree and dig it up.

"People are getting more and more knowledgeable about Christmas trees. We are popular because customers know they are getting a fresh tree and not one that has spent hours crushed in a huge lorry."

In East Sussex there are around 15 smallholdings where Christmas trees are grown for sale.

Roger Hay, of the British Christmas Tree Growers' Association, said: "We are not worried about foreign competition. You can tell a British Christmas tree because it is fresher and of better quality. We are beginning to export more trees because people recognise the quality."

Real Christmas trees also benefit the environment. They absorb carbon dioxide and other gases and emit fresh oxygen, helping to prevent global warming.

Every acre of Christmas trees grown produces the daily oxygen requirement for 18 people.

The Argus's gardening expert, Bob James, said: "I am always surprised more and more people do not grow their own Christmas trees in containers that can be trundled in and out of the house each year. Choose the right sort and it can last a lifetime without outgrowing the house."

Tuesday December 09, 2003