The Nordmann Fir is the most popular Christmas tree variety within the UK and is also popular across the rest of Europe. We’ve been taking a look at the version offered by Balsam Hill, who pride themselves on capturing the true natural character of a tree in artificial form.

Assembly

Arriving promptly at our front door, the Nordmann Fir was in a well packed box, with the tree in parts, literature, spare LED light bulbs, gloves for styling the tree and a bag for storing the tree in after disassembly. We’ve had a couple of Balsam Hill trees that have now experienced a number of Christmases and the supplied bags are an absolute necessity and are really hard wearing!

Each part of the tree slots into the other’s inner pole, and the pole ingeniously doubles as the electrical connection source for the lights. Our 6 foot tree comes in three parts. For best results style the branches of each part as you go (detailed by Balsam Hill) and once all are styled, we then work it further to achieve optimum fullness of the foliage - taking around 45-60 minutes in total. You’ll find after doing this on the first year that in subsequent years (even after the tree has been packed away) the tree will retain more branch styling memory and so this process gets a bit quicker. Once this process is complete, the tree is ready for baubles and we used our elegant Balsam Hill 35 silver and gold genuine glass ornaments set.

The Realism & Lighting

The Nordmann Fir is a firm favourite within the UK, seen within garden centres up and down the country for sale at this time of the year. In comparison with our main Christmas tree, the Balsam Hill Fraser Fir, the Balsam Hill Nordmann Fir has darker green hues, tighter needles and limper foliage that is particularly evident towards the the end of the branches that droop a little. The fine details of the real exhibit have once again been remarkably well captured by Balsam Hill and fans of this tree type will be amazed at the likeness. In particular, the dark sheen of foliage in natural sunlight is present, and just like the real thing the appearance changes in colour temperature and hue throughout the day and night. It’s a full Nordmann Fir style and rids the awkward chubby image, so often seen within living rooms due to real trees being cut too early, for the more expensive, mature pyramidal shape of this tree type; which is so much nicer!

For the first time we’ve had a Balsam Hill tree with both colour and clear LED lights. Controlled either by a panel switch on the base of the tree or a handy remote with a good 3-4 metre range. You can adjust the brightness (it can get bright enough to light up our living room), swap between colour, clear and a combination of the two illuminating together. For households that can’t decide if they prefer colour or clear lights on their tree, this is an excellent option. The twinkly charm of lighting accentuates the glossy dark green foliage and lifelike needle detail of the Nordmann Fir.

Verdict

The Balsam Hill Nordmann Fir Tree excellently captures the character of the real thing. A firm favourite tree type for Christmas within the UK, this variety from Balsam Hill is practical in every way: it always has full-foliage with no falling needles, no watering necessary and it’s pre-lit!