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Kavanagh Christmas Trees
The life of an Irish Christmas tree: Fourteen years from planting to your living room
Ever wonder where your Christmas tree came from?
KAVANAGH CHRISTMAS TREES in Co Wicklow have been in business since the 1950s, since current owner Christy Kavanagh’s father worked in the state forestry department.
It’s a craft that takes a lot of patience – 14 years worth of patience for some crops, as they start life as seeds to end up in somebody’s living room nearly a decade-and-a-half later.
“There’s not many fourteen year cycles in your life,” says Kavanagh.
But because we plant every year, it doesn’t seem to make any difference.
This summer’s drought had a major impact on their crop this year, Kavanagh said – while the farm was snowed in for about a week in the wake of Storm Emma at the start of March.
Looking ahead to Brexit, Kavanagh said he wasn’t too concerned about the future of the business, as the company has its own retail site and supplies supermarkets in Ireland in addition to exporting to the UK and Germany.
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