On the sale of the lonesome pine!

He first took a gamble on putting down roots at the remote mystery location on the moor six years ago.
Now business is booming for ex-chef Hans from Barcombe heights, Paignton, with 80,000 trees of 14 varieties in the soil and the festive season just around the corner.
He has seen trade at the Marldon Christmas Tree Farm grow form sales of just 15 Christmas trees in his first year to a predicted 3,000 this year.
And, with prices starting around the £7 mark, he'll sell you everything from a dwarfish fir in a pot to a lofty 20- footer, a bushy Fraser fir- "the nicest looking variety"- a tree guaranteed not to drop it's needles.

'Hobby'

"It is still a hobby, really," said Hans, who left his native Germany in 1964. "But it seems to be going very well, and this Christmas should be our most successful yet."
Hans' wife Teresa has even opened up a retail outlet in Totnes Road, Marldon, to sell trees direct to the public.
The former head chef at Torquay's Osborne Hotel seized on the bizarre business opportunity when a friend offered him the land.
"He couldn't do much with it, so I thought I would see what I could do," he recalled.
Market research and costing exercises showed that the gamble could pay off- and it has.




Potting away... Hans Schurmann staff get busy with the smaller varieties which can come complete with own pot.

'Snapped'

Fifteen trees in pots were snapped up in year one, growing to 600 12 months later, 1,500 in year three- and the 3,000 forecast over the coming weeks.
And between 60 and 70 per cent of his annual business will come flooding in over the two weekends at the beginning of December.
But the Christmas market does, of course, have its drawbacks.
"There is no market at all at other times of the year," he sadly confirmed.
Who wants to buy a Christmas tree in August?
The lonesome pine... the trail is over as Hans Schurmann carefully tends a two week old noble fir.















For the christmas chop... Hans Schurmann carefully selects those five year old trees that are ready for harvesting.


American feel to yuletide as special
fir takes tree trade by storm
Christmas celebrations will have an American feel this year thanks to pioneering work of a Marldon Christma tree farm.
Orders have poured in to Marldon Christmas Tree Farm for the Fraser fir, after the species was imported from the States seven years ago. The fir, which grows up to nine feet tall, is now so popular demand for it is outstripping that for it's British cousin.
Farm manager Teresa Schurmann and husband Hans are expecting to sell 1,000 Fraser firs for Christmas.
They began growing the Christmas tree after a trip to America where they are the most popular brand. The couple even have two in their own home.
Teresa said: "We went to a convention in America and saw them growing and thought they were absolutely fantastic.
"Everyone told us the Fraser firs were rubbish and were very negative. But we took the gamble and they worked out brilliantly."
Teresa added:"We held an open day for people to see the trees themselves and after that they went away and started growing their own. We have a head start on them as we have been growing the trees for a few years."
But Teresa is ready for the trade rush as customers opt for real trees instead of artificial alternatives.
She added:"I think people are buying Christmas trees more than ever now.
"They are becoming more environmentally friendly and choosing real trees rather than fake plastic ones.
"Plastic trees are fine but they don't have the same appeal as a traditional real Christmas tree."


Early Christmas gift from tree farmers

It is too early by far to wish readers a happy Christmas but our story from the havens this week comes from an appropriate site - a Christmas tree farm owned by Hans and Teresa Schurmann who have brought 34 acres into the havens project.
With 14 different varieties of Christmas tree and about 45,000 trees in all at their farm at Marldon, South Devon, it is no surprise to find an ongoing wildlife situation of considerable interest.
Both Hans and Teresa are deeply interested in the wildlife conservation aspect of their farm, particularly in how to encourage more fauna species to stay and take up home on their two sites.
Although one might imagine this fairly intensive management regime may be unlikely to attract wildlife, this is not the case.
For example, on one of the sites where no owls have been present for some years, the trees have become a refuge for small mammals including many mice and voles.
These in turn have attracted two pairs of tawny owls and as there are some fine beech trees and other broad leaved species on the site we are providing a tawny owl nest box to encourage a pair to nest.
It is interesting to know that one acre of Christmas trees provides the daily oxygen requirements of 18 people, and that for every tree harvested, two or three new seedlings are planted.
We will be carrying out a wildlife survey at the two sites in due course as part of the ongoing Millennium Havens Project.


Christmas is growing

More than 100 Christmas tree growers have visited South Devon as part of an open day.
The Marldon Christmas tree farm, which grows more than 14 varieties of fir trees, played host to growers from the British Christmas Tree Growers Association.
Along with a huge inflatable Father Christmas, the Fraser Fir proved most interesting to the visitors, many of whom had never seen one before.
Hans Schurmann of the Marldon farm, said the morning had the emphasis on the retail side of the business, with the afternoon spent up on Dartmoor where the Christmas trees were grown, giving the growers the chance to look at the different varieties of trees.

He said:"They were mainly interested in the Fraser Fir, it holds its needles and has got a good scent.
"People like them as they are not so fat."
Last year he planted 2,000 of the trees and sold 800, leaving 500 to grow taller.
He said:"I had to leave some in. A lot of people have victorian houses and guest houses and hotels like them taller."
Mr Schurmann said some of the growers had only seen one variety of tree- the Norway Spruce- and were amazed at all the different ones which were grown on Marldon, going away with lots of ideas.