The Christmas season brought to our attention another unlikely product that can now be rented instead of bought.

People tell us that we’re breaking the mould by renting out fine diamond jewellery for special occasions, and it turns out that there are some other lateral thinkers out there.

So how about renting … a Christmas tree?

Yes, that’s right.

With impeccable eco-credentials it’s now possible to rent a ‘living’ Christmas tree. So that would be an evergreen tree in every sense of the word green, then.

We’ve spotted a couple of companies that do this, one in California that’s the subject of a news report you can watch below, and a second company which is based in Dorset called Trees-for-Rent (www.treesforrent.com) and has the snappy slogan, ‘A tree is for life…‘

The trees are supplied planted into pots with their roots intact, and they need to be watered so that they stay alive and can be returned to the wild (well, to the supplier) after the Christmas season.

The festive trees even come with identifying tags so that they can be rented year after year by the same family, so you can watch them grow up with the kids!

And best of all, it means that these trees avoid the worst of all post-Christmas fates: they don’t end up lying dead and abandoned in laybys and carparks in the first week of January.

It’s a great way to make the most of a natural product by recycling it for use on multiple special occasions.

Just like renting diamonds!