Meet Graham Willet, a horticulturist making it his business to protect the nation’s Christmas trees from the throw away festive season.

From a patch of land in Derby city centre, 29-year-old Graham is hiring out Christmas trees. But his business, The Little Tree Company, is a hire company with a difference, as all of their trees live to serve for more than one season.

In two weeks Graham will receive 500 Norway Spruce that will be potted up and sent out to houses all over the UK, before being return to Little Tree Company headquarters ready to do it again the next year, and the year after that. Graham says that the recycling of Christmas trees, rather than disposing of them every season, seemed like an obvious plan.

“It wasn’t a sudden idea. I just could never work out why it would be any other way.”

Through the scheme, Graham is hoping to reduce the eight million trees that are cut down every year in the UK in order to “plonk them in homes and dress them up.”

The trees are kept alive in pots and managed using bonsai techniques. It involves pruning the roots and tops of the tree in certain ways to keep them balanced and healthy while controlling their growth. “Norway Spruce grows about 2-3ft (1m) a year, so it wouldn’t be possible to do it unless I used bonsai techniques to handle them,” he said.

This year, Graham has sourced his trees from a grower in Suffolk. He will keep this batch for four years before planting them out on empty patches of land in order to offset 10% of the season’s carbon footprint. As the company develops, Graham plans to create Little Tree nurseries to grow his own trees.

The Little Tree Company is the only nationwide hire scheme in the UK because of what Graham believes to be incorrect assumptions that long-distance delivery is un-ecological. Graham argues that doing it his way is “actually far more ecologically viable”.

The scheme appeals to the sentimentality of the season too, as families can hire the same tree over several years. On a similar scheme Graham had previously run, one family faithfully rented out Colwin the Christmas Tree, as they had named him, for four years. “I always spotted him because he had this big label on that they had given me themselves”, Graham remembers.

A life-long interest.

As a horticulturist, Graham has had an avid interest in nature ever since he was young.

“I grew up from an early age being really passionate about plants. Even when I was toddling I was going around learning all the names of the plants and flowers.”

Graham had long harboured intentions to set up The Little Tree Company but it all rested on finding the right plot of land, big enough for his plans but still financially viable for a company which he admits is more of a social endeavour than a business. His targets were urban, disused patches of land. But where could he find such a spot? Well, there happened to be one not a ten-minute walk from his house.

The plot that Graham rents was originally e site of Derby railway station. It has been empty for over 30 years, and lies just inside what will be the city’s new ring road. 30ft from the road is 22-acres of overgrown woodland and impressive old factory buildings.

The entrance is currently though a back gate, well known by drug users who have left paraphernalia all over the land. “Naughty people have been doing naughty things”, Graham explains to his four-year-old daughter Hope, who tramps along the path with as much enthusiasm as her dad.

Numerous planning applications have been put in on the land over the years, but they have been refused since the 1970s in order to protect the 24 species of rare butterfly that inhabit it.

In the long term, Graham aims to swap the Norway Spruce Christmas tree to the indigenous Sots Pine, so that the British wildlife will benefit more when the trees are planted out. This will make for a richer experience for people visiting the woodland, who will “see an increase in things like squirrels, deer, foxes and badgers”.

How many households is Graham hoping to give a greener Christmas? “If I could get 100,000 at the saturation of the business then I’d be happy. It’s 100, 000 tonnes of carbon a year offset”.

Regardless of the numbers he achieves, Graham’s scheme has transformed the unkempt patch of land in a festive and eco-friendly project, supporting and encouraging native wildlife. And, on top of that, maybe The Little Tree Company’s venture will serve as a reminder that trees are for life, not just for Christmas.

Walking down a north London street, phone firmly to one ear, I am late to meet Lucy Harvey.  Outside the vast Waterside offices, I’m not sure which door will lead me to our meeting place, Backgrounds Prop Hire. Lucy’s friendly voice is on the end of the phone trying in vain to explain which entrance to use, but eventually she gives up and comes outside to meet me. Her head of blonde hair pops out of one of the doorways, she yells ‘Hello!’ and begins gushing compliments. Without a hint of any annoyance at my failure to understand her description of the appropriate door, it is immediately clear that one of the country’s most notable visual stylists is quite possible also one of the country’s friendliest people.

As a visual stylist, Lucy works for top media names, styling interiors, props and costumes. When I meet her she is browsing the tableware on the shelves at Backgrounds for a ‘365 Days of Soup’ cookbook that she is currently styling. She has collected a pile of intricately patterned fabrics, ones with a ‘folksy’ feel which she claims to be ‘really into at the minute’. She has been told to work mostly with whites, but the colours creping in to her ideas seem inevitable when you consider the woman behind the styling. In a full-length rainbow striped dress and gold shoes, colour is something Lucy welcomes with open arms.

This is the third book that the 31-year-old has worked on, after making a name for herself in top publications such as Sunday Times Style, Harpers Bazaar and Elle Decoration. Set styling for books is something she is keen to do more of as she is given more time and budget, and is allowed space to indulge her creativity and develop her ideas. I’m really pushing to see how much of my personality I can get into it this time’, she says.

‘Everything I’ve done has been for other people, following their brief. I don’t think I’ve reached a stage yet where I’m being hired to do what I want to do. I think that’s a privilege not many professionals get.’

She is getting there though. With every burst of colour or ‘folksy’ pattern that makes it into the book, an imprint of Lucy’s personality is left behind.

So was Lucy Harvey born to style? She believes it’s more nurture than nature. ‘I’ve always felt I’m more of a creative person than anything else, but I think I’ve become good at styling…over the years you develop an eye and you stop questioning your judgement as much,’ she says. ‘I’ve been exposed to all the fashions and trends that have happened over the last eight years. Being in central London, you’re on the cutting edge of when fashions change, so I kind of understand trend really well, and trends are a big part of recognising what styles work together.’

As we talk, Lucy is sipping peppermint tea out of a mug that declares ‘Stylist’.As she tries to work it into the photos, she sheepishly confesses its importance. ‘The first time I came [To Backgrounds] and someone gave me this mug, I felt this enormous sense of pride!’. Now eight years into her career, Lucy is finally taking control. ‘I’ve stopped saying yes to jobs that are taking me in the wrong direction. I never thought there was a wrong or a right, I would just do anything’, she states.

She certainly isn’t short of projects; whether it is book styling, fashion styling running a café or teaching as a visiting lecturer. Lucy says she has a lot of strings to her bow, and she’s not wrong. There’s even talks of setting up craft workshops with her sister, to do something calm and still, to stop her ‘running around like a blue arsed fly.’

Since she began styling in 2002, Lucy has worked on a range of projects She nonchalantly name drops the country’s latest heart-throb, whom she styled whilst working on an independent film about young Brits finding their way in the world. ‘The film didn’t do particularly well’, she reflects, ‘but the lead did well. It was Robert Pattinson, but when we met him he was just starting out.’

Regardless of whether or not she knew she was working with a future-fanged star, the film was one of her most loved experiences. What is it about dressing young men that she enjoyed so much? ‘Doing costume for independent films involves a lot of thinking about what you’re doing. It’s far more creative because you have to think artistically about the character rather than thinking commercially or in terms of a brand. As a costume designer you really read the script and understand the characters, which is a wonderful thing.’ Sure, that must be it.

Lucy is now getting ready to leave Backgrounds. She finishes packing her Marilyn Monroe trolley and heads for the stairs. She explains the trolley; ‘I have to take this everywhere with me. I’m shopping all the time so I need to have somewhere to put it all.’

She goes on to describe the reasoning behind her constant buying. ‘If I see something in a charity shop I just have to have it because I think it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity…I must have at least eight pairs of curtains in my room [in a shared house]. I buy them just in case I move into a house one day.’ This somehow seems applicable to her attitude towards life. Impulsive. Forward thinking. A dreamer.

Spending time with Lucy, it is clear she feels that the commercial world isn’t ready for her all-encompassing style. Style to her is bright and unique, and that is not something that everybody can appreciate. So I ask her, does she feel her work reflects her personality? ‘No, not really. The way I express myself isn’t shown through my work because I’m not particularly commercial. If I dressed in linen and nice tonal clothes, I probably would reflect the styling that I do because that’s what people want.’

It might be worth nothing, that this rainbow and gold style is a matured look for Harvey. She has passed the age where clashing colours and ‘wearing things that don’t look quite right’ is the status quo and she is now mellowing in her view of what constitutes good style.

She is learning the rules of style, slowly but surely, that other people value, even if she in her personal life doesn’t. ‘My styling doesn’t reflect my personality because my personality isn’t that world. It isn’t the Sunday Times. It isn’t tasteful.’

If Harvey’s contagiously sunny personality can’t be seen as tasteful, then maybe taste has got its priorities wrong. Regardless, Lucy will keep working her sense of style into her work, with the hope that one-day ‘people can see that there’s something about my particular style that has a character that they want.’

Until that day, styling may have to take a back seat for Lucy’s newest passion – The 12 Bar Café in London’s Tin Pan Alley. It’s clear that the café has been in the forefront of her mind all day – she mentions it every other sentence.

She has been running it for two months now, with her husband Tickle. (She tells me she met him after she saw a documentary about clowns, on which he was ‘the only funny one’ – I hardly dare ask, but I presume the nickname is a throwback to those times).

Despite having met her just four hours ago, I get the impression that here is where she is at her happiest. She tells me that she has always wanted to be at the centre of something, to have something to gravitate towards, and the café seems to be it.

The atmosphere is boisterous and unique, as might be expected for a cafe under the management of an extrovert stylist and a former clown. The ‘Today’s Special’ board is adapted by a note from Lucy asserting ‘Yes, it is!’, and a photo of Tickle from his entertaining days rests on the jukebox which is playing Bowie’s greatest hits.

The 12 Bar Club is a well known bar at night but Lucy and Tickle convinced their friends, the owners, to open it up in the day as well, and it seems to be a success. As one customer turns to leave, he stops to say: ‘That’s one of the best toasted sandwiches I’ve had in a long time…I’ll certainly come again!’

He may just be being coy; it is most probably the staff that have convinced him to return. Lucy Harvey’s talent lies, aside from having an eye for style, in engaging with people. You can’t help but be drawn in by her.

She gets talking to one man at the counter who is waiting to pay, a deliveryman who ‘can get any package anywhere at any time’ (think Jason Statham in The Transporter), and has built up his entire business through word of mouth. She whole-heartedly congratulates him then takes down his number, just in case.

Lucy states that her styling work doesn’t reflect where she’s at, and that much is obvious because, as she buzzes around the counter chatting to customers, tonal shades and minimalism just wouldn’t suffice. A spectrum of colours, a bit of glitter and an abundance of hypnotising patterns might be nearer the mark.