'Renting out Christmas trees gives us a buzz'

Alastair Lucking and wife Diane run Love a Christmas Tree with the help of volunteers

A Christmas tree rental business in Leicestershire has had to stop taking orders after its most popular season yet.

Alastair Lucking and wife Diane, from Kirkby Mallory, have run Love a Christmas Tree for about a decade and deliver all the trees themselves.

Mr Lucking said it was a "rewarding" way of life and a "buzz" to serve more than 300 customers.

The 72-year-old former management consultant said the project had been conceived as something to "keep the brain going" during his retirement.

'Epiphany moment'

The idea is the trees are delivered to people's homes for the festive period, and then returned to the farm where they are properly cared for during the rest of the year.

Mr Lucking said following the most popular year yet for their venture, they had been forced to stop taking new orders more than two weeks ago.

"It has been adopted and accepted by families, businesses, pubs - it is really amazing how people have bought into what we are trying to achieve," he said.

"It is quite a buzz and seeing their faces light up when they see their trees coming back again. That is fantastic."

The couple own a four-acre plot of land which has hosted animals in the past, but Mr Lucking said an "epiphany moment" had led to his decision to start renting out Christmas trees.

Their sons, who live in the US, had told him not to get carried away, but 7,000 trees later, Mr Lucking joked "the jury is still out on that".

The couple said many of the trees had their own names

The Nordmann fir trees come from Denmark at four years old and customers can choose how tall they want their tree to be - with the smallest option starting at £30.

At its peak, the couple had 15,000 trees - although most of these were not at the right maturity for renting - and as they have matured, the customer base has grown.

Mr Lucking said when they started in 2016, there were only three tree renting businesses in the country.

But since then the idea has caught on and many others have been launched nationwide.

"It is just like somebody coming over and looking after your lawn. They are willing to pay that small price," he said.

"If they can find someone that can look after their tree for them - it is a shrink wrap process.

"It is an environmental approach, they know that the tree is going to come back year after year."