Clive's story
Clive Collins tells us how managing a Christmas tree farm has helped him regain his self-confidence and self esteem since injury.
"In 1990, while operating my forestry business, I had an accident at work and found myself in the NSIC at Stoke Mandeville with a broken back, T12/L1 complete. This meant I lost all sensation in my lower body, my legs stopped working, as did my bladder and bowels.
While I was lying on my back in hospital, wondering what I would do with the farm I had recently bought, it struck me that not all my dreams had to be shelved. I could still grow Christmas Trees. It would mean hiring people to plant the trees, apply the herbicides and carry out various other tasks, but at least I could sit around and watch them grow!
Looking back, my real plan was to sit around being fairly sad and doing as little as possible. I was still fairly ill when I left Stoke Mandeville. I was severely depressed, into recreational drugs and alcohol and enjoyed the occurrence of regular bladder infections. I thought that if I planted some trees it would look like I was doing something. At that time in my life, status was very important to me.
So, In 1992 I planted 6,000 trees and in 1993 I planted 12,000 trees. The plan was to plant lots of trees and make lots of money! These two plantings left me short of money and a little short of land. I did another planting in 1995 of a further 14,000 trees.
After sometime I realised that I had planted all these trees and at some stage I would have to sell them. I studied Marketing and Sales for two years and I started to take some advice from a consultant who is a leading specialist in the culture and marketing of Christmas Trees in the UK.
Talking to him, allowed me to understand where I was making mistakes in my tree-growing business. These are some of them:
I needed to plant trees other than Norway Spruce. Perhaps some needle-retentive trees like Nordman Fir.
I need to leave a good space around my trees so that I could personally access them with my hydrostatic mower and hydrostatic sprayer.
I needed to start my own retail business at the farm so that I could realise a better return for my trees.
I needed to start trading in Nordman Fir and offer it on my retail price list along with my Norway Spruce; this would allow me to "warm up" my market for the Nordman I was to plant in 1997.
Now I was getting interested and I wanted a more ‘hands on’ approach to my tree business. So I made the farm and the plantation more accessible and it was then that I began to experience a degree of success.
To cut a long story short, after following his advice, I have sold all the trees I planted in 1997. I now have tree plantings for 1999, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 and I enjoy a fairly strong wholesale business and a rapidly expanding retail business on my farm and online and have become a tax-paying citizen again.
The reasons I run my tree business now are less to do with money and a lot more to do with teaching myself assertiveness, self confidence, people skills and making me feel good about the way I am.
I need an accessible environment in order to run around my farm and attend to my stock. Gates need to swing and I have designed various systems that allow me to open and close them.
I have acquired various machines, a hydrostatic mower which means there is no clutch, brake or gear stick, this means I can get in amongst the trees easily and mow between them. A small hydrostatic sprayer that has a tank mounted on the back of the unit and finally a John Deere Gator complete with hand controls.
Certain jobs around the farm are not possible for me. For these I have found ‘key people’. They are a farm engineer, a tree pruner, an executive salesman, a consultant, an agricultural contractor and during our busy retail period, which is mainly at weekends, a group of teenagers who come and help staff the shop."
If you want to visit Clive to purchase your Christmas tree or buy one online, you will find him at www.snowtimetrees.com
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