Pretty pac-man tree

My recent online shopping escapades have included attempting to find an eco xmas tree: artificial trees are pretty well naff as anything, but chopping down a real tree, I mean.. ya just can't do that these days, right? Next year I think we might go for a potted one though, as my 3ft artificial 'luxury replica' tree, sold online looking like this...

... arrived looking like this.

Sigh. After much (much) fluffing, and if you don't stand too close, you can get it to almost look like a tree, but close-up it's still that awful tinsel stuff, and not actually replica needles and branches. But, see, what I really want is a tree like THIS.

Mmmm. Festive!

Comments

[Catherine]

Damn that tree is really disappointing looking compared to the picture, I think it's hard to find a good fake tree now.

[Alice]

It's odd, because artificial plants and normal trees are incredibly good these days; I was really expecting something a bit more advanced than the tinsel ones I'd see around as a kid. But not really. Or at least, not this one!

Probably serves me right for buying sight unseen though.

[Mr Tom]

Our artificial tree is looking a bit bare in spots now, and this is only the 3rd year we've used it. It's so disappointing isn't it?

Uh, so you went for something laboriously manufactured out of fossil fuel derived plastics rather than something organic and renewable that sequestered carbon from the atmosphere? Oh, Alice :)

Tip - warm it with a hairdryer. It'll relax the tinsely bits nicely. it's a semi thermoset plastic, iirc.

[Alice]

Oh WAIIIL!
Crap. I am useless. I didn't think of that. Now I feel terrible :)

Okay, planted real tree next year, for sure. I've already got one, but idiotically I replanted him in a tub, and now he's permanently rooted. What are the alternatives, then, if any?

[bob_d]

Not to worry- I don't think a (living) Xmas tree is going to sequester much carbon, unless you plant it somewhere appropriate at the end of the holidays where it has a long term future and get a new one the next year. (Relying on trees to sequester carbon is an iffy proposition at best, anyways.) A plastic tree, on the other hand, is some petrochemicals that aren't getting converted into CO2 by some SUV. Of course, you can't ever ever throw it away. ;)
One reason the tree looks so disappointing compared to the picture is probably because the ad picture is of a completely different (and much larger) tree- they use the exact same picture for the 6-foot tree, and it may not even be that one, either. That's fraud, that is.