Photo Credit: Aaron Hoffman, Herd Media
For the first time, this festive season, real Christmas Trees will be available to purchase from Growers Kim and Rob Sizers from their property, Hillview, near Tamworth, New South Wales.
Christmas trees at various stages of growth at Hillview Christmas Trees
For the next generation of farmers, it can be difficult to make a start, whether that be taking over a family farm, expanding an existing operation or buying a new property of your own. For young professionals in the agricultural industry like Kim and Rob Sizer, increasingly often they’re having to think outside of the square for ways to make their land profitable and financially viable. For Kim and Rob, they did more than just think outside of the square, they are attempting something completely new for the Tamworth region. For the first time this year, Australian-grown Christmas trees will be available to purchase from Hillview Christmas Trees.
Keeping it viable:
Located on the outskirts of Tamworth lies Hillview farm, a 360 acre parcel of rich agricultural land, purchased by Kim and Rob Sizer in 2021. Born out of a need to expand their workshop space for their ever-growing metal work business, Custom Cutting Studio, Kim and Rob embarked on a search that would lead them to Hillview. Though they came across a few spaces that could work for them, the 360acre Hillview simply spoke to the couple with its breathtaking views, comfortable family home, great workshop and irrigation licences to boot. But these assets also made the block a desirable purchase for those in the lifestyle market, and so the farm came at a premium. The question quickly became how to make the financials work? How can a young couple making their way in the ag industry make the business financially viable for them? Enter self-professed excel whiz, Rob, who set about making a business plan that would go on to build a new Christmas-based dream for the pair.
Hillview as a property was traditionally suited to raising cattle. But with the cost of inputs increasing, when Rob and Kim ran the numbers, a grazing operation was just not going to cut it. So together, with Kim’s creative flair and Rob’s trusty excel spread sheets, they set about creating a bold and adventurous business plan.
Rob Sizer cuts a 5ft tree ready for display
Thinking outside the square:
With the irrigation licenses held by the property, a lucerne hay production operation seemed a sensible way to build one part of the business, sustaining a high value crop suited to the seasonal conditions of the New England region. Their irrigation set up is fed from the Peel River, the main water supply for Tamworth, and a water supply that is quick to be cut to farmers when a drier season inevitably approaches. Ever the entrepreneurs, Kim and Rob began to build another arm to their business, alongside their metal work business and hay production; they set about planting their very first crop of Christmas trees.
One thing to know about Kim and Rob is that they don’t do things by half, it’s an all or nothing approach. And so, in their first round of planting in 2021, they planted 5000 trees on the 50acres of land set aside to their Christmas tree project. In the following summer of 2022, a further 10,000 trees were planted. And again, in the summer of 2023, another 13,000 trees were planted. Taking into account an approximate fail rate of 10%, and another planting just finished, they now have a total of 27,000 Christmas trees at various stages of growth supported by 40km of drip line to sustain them.
The approach of an Agronomist:
By this point in the story, some may have recognised Kim as not just a Christmas tree producer or hay farmer or metal work extraordinaire, she is also a much-loved Pursehouse Rural agronomist who has been assisting growers on the Liverpool Plains for many years. Where once we found Kim in a cotton paddock, today she has moved on (for at least some of her working week) to producing the BEST Christmas trees in Tamworth.
With Kim's Agronomic background, growing pine trees went against everything she had experienced up until now. In her mind, the best country is black soil and, when matched with a well thought out fertiliser and watering program, that will yield the best result, right? Well not when it came to growing pine trees, they needed a little more tough love. Though the Christmas trees at Hillview receive a fair bit more care and attention than in the regular pine plantations to ensure they are looking as luscious as possible by the time the festive season rolls around. They are pruned on a regular basis, supported by extensive drip lines and fertilised regularly, though at a little lower rate than Kim had initially planned. Because they are the first in the Tamworth region to attempt to grow Christmas trees, there is a lot of trial and error and thinking and rethinking when it comes to the best approach to successfully growing Christmas trees.
Keeping Christmas trees in the family:
Kim is not the first in her family to start a Christmas tree farm. The story really starts with her mum who happened to be English. The family returned to Australia from England when Kim was around 13 years old and once Christmas rolled around, her mum set about finding a real Christmas tree to have in the house, a staple of any English Christmas. Much to her dismay she was only able to find a twig-like thing that she paid $90 for! At that same time, Kim’s father was running a horticulture operation at Coramba, near Coffs Harbour. Soon he planted just 100 Christmas trees, testing the waters to see how the real Christmas trees would fair in the Australian climate and how they would sell into an Australian market. Over the following 18 years, the Christmas tree business at Coramba would continue to grow, garnering quite the following across the Coffs Harbour region.
Unfortunately, in 2018 Kim’s mum got sick and sadly passed away in 2021. Kim’s father sold the property at Coffs Harbour in 2022, a year after Kim and Rob purchased Hillview. But the seeds of inspiration were firmly with Kim and she and Rob were all in when it came to setting up a brand-new Christmas tree operation in Tamworth. By their second year of planting, Kim and Rob had committed to more trees than her father did in Coffs and skip forward to their first year of harvest in 2024, their operation is looking more than impressive with hay production going well and a clear sales target for their Christmas trees in this year’s festive period.
A modern approach to agribusiness:
With a natural talent for entrepreneurship, Kim juggles multiple business, a career in Agronomy with Pursehouse Rural and a young family. She has a few tools at her disposal that make her day-to-day business operations just a little easier. One of those being social media. At the start Kim drove all social media activities for both the metal work business and Hillview Christmas Trees herself, amassing a sizeable following to her social media accounts. Though over the years, she has learned that it doesn’t hurt to outsource where you can. Today, Kim employs some outside help when it comes to her social media. For Kim this has only strengthened her approach and is a key sales technique for this festive season. By outsourcing her social media, Kim has seen a shift in the look and feel of her social media channels, now moving to the viewpoint of the consumer with an interesting insight into the daily activities on the farm. What Kim and Rob may see as mundane often brings the biggest result on their social media pages. For Hillview Christmas Trees, social media and digital marketing are an ever-growing part of their business, with sales being directed through their website. For Kim and Rob, the prospect of cost-effective marketing solutions facilitated by digital channels, such as their website and social media, gave them a ticket to go all in on their business model, planting the maximum number of trees they could and generating demand as they went.
Social media and sales were not the only aspects of setting up a small regional business that Kim had to tackle. Like many other farms and small businesses, labour shortages at the busiest times of the year are a constant headache. But again, Kim and Rob have been thinking outside of the square to combat labour struggles this upcoming festive season. To help with limited distribution channels in their first year of selling Christmas trees Kim set about engaging in partnerships with local community groups. The deal was, they set up a collection point for a real Hillview Christmas tree, sales are made through the Hillview Christmas tree website but collected at a point established by the community group and they get a cut of the proceeds from each tree collected from that location. So far, collection points for Christmas 2024 have been locked in for Tamworth, Quirindi, Gunnedah, Coffs Harbour and Uralla.
Christmas can't come soon enough!
For the Sizer family at Hillview Christmas Trees, Christmas just can’t come soon enough. Christmas of 2024 is the culmination of three years of hard work establishing a new farm in a new location to get them to the first Christmas trees available for
purchase at Hillview. But more than that, it is a legacy that extends through almost 20 years of family business in New South Wales.
Kim and Rob embody the entrepreneurial spirit, unafraid to give anything a go, giving it all they’ve got no matter what. Kim’s questioning nature has led her to be a great agronomist for Pursehouse Rural, always pushing to learn more and get the best result for her customers, and this questioning nature has taken her into a whole new world of business, producing the best product for her community at a very important time of the year: Christmas!
Find Hillview Christmas Trees online at hillviewchristmastrees.com.au or follow them on social media at www.instagram.com/hillview_christmas_trees
This story was taken from edition eight of the Your Rural Success Magazine. Check out the full edition at www.pursehouserural.com.au/your-rural-success-magazine
