A good artificial tree should give you ten Christmases or more. Most of the trees that come back to us looking tired after two or three years have not worn out. They have been crushed. How you pack the tree away in January decides how it looks next November, and the single biggest mistake is the most natural one: putting it back in the box it came in.
Don't put it back in the box
The box your tree arrived in was packed by machine, in a factory, around a tree that had never been opened out. Every branch was folded flat and every tip was pressed in tight so the whole thing would fit a carton the size of a suitcase. Once you have shaped the tree, it will only go back in that box by force. The tips get flattened against each other, the cardboard sags over eight months in a shed or attic and squeezes them further, and a crushed tip does not spring back on its own. That is how a tree ages years in one season.
The same goes for garlands and wreaths. They come coiled or folded tight in a box that is far smaller than the finished piece. Pack them back in that way and the tips that took you twenty minutes to fluff out will be flat again by next year.
PVC and PE: why some trees crush worse than others
Artificial tree tips are made from one of two plastics, and it matters when it comes to storage.
PVC tips are the flat, needle shaped strips you see on most trees, garlands and wreaths, especially at the lower and middle price points. PVC is soft and has very little memory. Crush it and it stays crushed. It also goes brittle with age, so a tip that is flattened and then forced open again can snap. PVC trees are the ones that suffer most from going back in the box.
PE (polyethylene) tips are moulded from a cast of a real branch, which is why they look so much more like the real thing. PE is tougher and springs back far better after being folded, so a PE tree forgives rough storage more than a PVC one. But it is not immune. Almost every PE tree, including our Bosk range, uses PVC fill tips towards the trunk to give the tree its body, and those still crush. The hinges, the wiring and the overall shape of the tree all suffer when it is crammed into a tight box, whatever the tips are made of.
So the advice is the same for every tree. It is just more urgent for a PVC one.
How to pack a tree away properly
- Take the lights off first if they are not built in, and wind them loosely around a piece of card. Pre lit trees stay as they are.
- Fold the branches up loosely, towards the trunk, the way they came. Don't force them flat.
- Lower each section into a tree storage bag or a large lidded box with room to spare. The bag should be bigger than you think you need. If you have to push, it is too small.
- Keep the sections upright if you can, trunk end down, so the weight sits on the pole rather than on the tips.
- Store it somewhere dry at an even temperature. A damp shed or a hot attic is hard on the plastic and on the wiring. Under a bed, in a wardrobe or in a dry garage is better.
- Don't stack anything on top of it.
Treated this way the tree will open out next year looking as it did this year, with a quick fluff rather than an afternoon of coaxing crushed tips back into shape.
Garlands and wreaths
Lay a garland flat in a shallow box or a garland bag, or coil it in loose loops no tighter than a dinner plate. Never fold it in half. Hang a wreath on a hook inside a wreath bag, or lay it flat on its own in a box, with nothing on top of it. Battery boxes should have the batteries taken out before storage.
Storage bags
We stock tree storage bags, wreath bags and bauble boxes in our Christmas Bags & Storage collection. A €15 bag is cheap insurance on a €300 tree.
