What is TEME?

TEME is a partnership that promotes English-grown mistletoe via events and the internet. We were the key player in the establishment of the Tenbury Wells Mistletoe Festival in 2004.

The TEME project began when a consortium of local business people and nationally acknowledged mistletoe experts got together to help secure a future for local and regional growers.

Mistletoe harvesting

Mistletoe is a parasite of trees, and most of the seasonal crop is taken from apple orchards (apple is European mistletoe's favourite host).

With the decline in management of traditional orchards mistletoe is increasingly either absent (in modern bush orchards) or too numerous (in neglected traditional orchards). TEME promote sustainable harvesting of mistletoe in all orchards where practical, including remedial management where trees have become overgrown (and threatened) by too much mistletoe.

Mistletoe has very little commercial value 'on the tree' - which may account for why so much has become neglected. The cost of harvesting, transport, sorting and packing can be prohibitive without a defined market. The TEME website helps to provide that market, and so should encourage better management.

TEME pick regularly throughout the mistletoe season, aiming to ensure your mistletoe is less than 2 days old when you receive it.

About Tenbury Wells

Tenbury Wells, situated in the very north west of Worcestershire, close to the borders of Herefordshire and Shropshire, is the 'mistletoe capital' of Britain.

Most of Britain's mistletoe grows in this region - it is relatively rare outside Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset. Tenbury's claim to fame is that it hosts the only remaining Mistletoe Auctions in the region.

The auctions, which are where mistletoe is brought by farmers to sell to wholesalers, take place in late November and early December. The future of the auctions was threatened in 2003/4 when the local cattle market closed. To help keep mistletoe traditions in the town, TEME founded theTenbury Mistletoe Festival in 2004.

Fortunately the Auctions still take place, albeit a few miles outside of the town now, and the Festival has become a popular alternative event within the town.

TEME have no direct involvement with the Mistletoe Auctions - we undertake a harvest ourselves and sell direct to the public (see our online shop links above).

The Festival has been organised by the Tenbury Events Committee since 2007.

More about mistletoe

English Mistletoe - the true mistletoe of tradition - is Viscum album, a species that occurs across Northern Europe. There are many other mistletoe species around the world.

English Mistletoe has been the subject of several conservation projects in recent years, most memorably the UK's national mistletoe survey of the 1990s. This confirmed the strong association of mistletoe with apple orchards, themselves a declining habitat, and implied long-term problems for mistletoe. It also confirmed the importance of the Worcestershire/ Gloucestershire/ Herefordshire areas for mistletoe - including Tenbury Wells.

Conservation projects for mistletoe, and a sustainable mistletoe harvest, continue. Current initiatives include the preliminary research on the economic value mistletoe brings to apple orchard owners and mistletoe conservation projects locally and across the country.

For more about mistletoe - and mistletoe projects - please visit Jonathan Briggs' mistletoe blog and website.

Mistletoe events in Tenbury Wells 2009

Key dates for 2009 are:

Mistletoe Festival Season from 20th November to 8th December including;

Mistletoe Auctions on Tuesdays 24th November. 1st December and 8th December.

Mistletoe Day celebrations on Saturday 5th December, including crowning of Mistletoe Queen, Charity Mistletoe Auction and Druid Mistletoe Blessing

For other events check the events pages at Jonathan Briggs' Mistletoe Pages as well as the Festival website.

For specific information on the Mistletoe Auctions please contact the auctioneer, Nick Champion.