Boris Johnson and his Downing Street party pals won't be rocking around the Christmas tree this year

According to the insurer ‘Simply Business’ there was a 136 per cent increase in Christmas tree sellers between 2017 and 2020, but this year has seen a 26 per cent drop.

Alan Thomas, the insurer’s chief executive, told the national press: “For the first time in four years our data has revealed a drop in the number of Christmas tree sellers. Like many small business owners, Christmas tree sellers have felt the impact of the [covid] pandemic, along with rising costs and supply chain challenges - forcing many to shut up shop.”

READ MORE: 6 of the best Christmas trees with a difference

However, ‘talk of the town' (London town that is) is pre-occupied with another dimension of spruce tree sparsity. And this time related to foliage on the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree sent every year since 1947 as a gift from the people of Norway to the people of the UK as a thank you for our help during the Second World War.

Norwegian Norway spruce seen here in at Trafalgar Square in 2012, and displaying the relatively sparse canopy to be expected on a 50-year old tree. And ‘Horatio’ didn’t appear too displeased at the time

The tree in question is as usual and appropriately a Norway spruce, typically a half-century old, 30 feet in height and cut from a forest in the Nordmarka region, a forested area to the north of Oslo the capital city of Norway.

In what some regard as disrespectful and a churlish attitude, given the long-lasting generosity of Norway, the British public, egged on by the national media have been commenting on the tree’s sparsity of foliage, perceived droopy branches and with gaps in the canopy.

The tree has been unkindly described as spindly and anaemic, but a quick look at pictures of some past years’ Christmas trees, all of which were Norway spruce originating in Norway, the tree erected this year is not a lot different.

The problem appears to arise from public perception of a Norway spruce and based on a 6 to 10 foot tree with a relatively tight canopy having taken just five years to reach this stage. What’s more Christmas tree growers clearly concentrate on canopy shape and quality, because that’s what sells Christmas trees.

Mature Norway spruce seen here being felled in West Sussex, and somewhat before 50 years were on the clock due to extensive wind damage sustained by the stand.

Canopy form on the Trafalgar Square tree is essentially down to the ‘nature of the beast’ - a 50-year old Norway spruce. But the British public does understand that in commercial forestry Norway spruce is first and foremost a timber tree felled at 50 years upwards; and not for any foliar good looks but for volume of standing, sawmill-class timber.

In other words, and in want of a better description, Norway spruce ‘stretches out’ as it grows to produce a tree with a visibly thin and sparse canopy and accentuated when trees are ‘pulled upwards’ from growing in plantations at a standard, ‘commercially-tight’ spacing.

Moans and groans on the streets of London reached the ear of Norway which in a massively magnanimous gesture looked as though it may well purchase another tree to replace the tree initially erected in Trafalgar Square in Central London.

Anne Haabeth Rygg leader of the Oslo Conservative Party appeared to be in favour of her city ‘making amends.

“I have seen the pictures of the tree looking sad, and it shouldn’t,” she said. However, she went on to tell The Times how the tree was a majestic specimen when it was dispatched from Oslo, but how the journey had left it looking less than presentable.

Instead of cutting another tree in Norway and shipping it across the North Sea, and not reaching in time for Christmas, Anne suggested that Norway buy a tree in Britain and pay for it out of the Oslo city budget. Whether or not her plans would come off looked less than likely since her political party controlled only a quarter of the seats on Oslo City Council.

Anyway given ‘hot’ news about Ips typographus spreading in south east England it might not be wise to fell and transport a mature Norway spruce, the primary host of this lethal spruce bark beetle pest.

READ MORE: Could Phytophthora pluvialis pulverise UK forestry? - Dr Terry Mabbett

And let’s hope the Christmas tree outside No 10 Downing Street is a Nordmann fir and not a Norway spruce, lest Boris Johnson gets woken up in the early hours of the morning by a senior plant health officer from the Forestry Commission wielding a chain saw.

However, that might be consolation for me and many others, knowing that whether at a party or a business meeting the Prime Minister and his entourage won’t be ‘rocking around the Christmas tree’ this year, irrespective of whether or not the rest of us are ‘locked down’ and ‘locked up’ which looks increasingly likely.