All about live Christmas trees
Walk the streets of an American suburb or a European town in December and you’re likely to see a familiar sight: a Christmas tree in the front window.
For many families, the Christmas tree comes out of a box. Fake trees make up about 75 to 80 percent of the Christmas tree market. They’re economical, low-maintenance, and can be stored easily.
But for about 50 million families around the world, a plastic tree just won’t do. No: they want the real thing. A fresh Christmas tree might be a spruce, pine, or fir tree.
But whatever variety you choose, there’s something special about having a fresh Christmas tree in your living room. No two are alike. The pine needles make the room smell nice for a few weeks. They’re more fun to decorate. And, let’s face it, they look better.
So where do all those Christmas trees come from? They come from Christmas tree farms. Here’s how they work.
Christmas trees are a long-term crop. A typical family tree is about two to four meters tall, and takes anywhere from five to twelve years to mature, depending on the species, the soil conditions, and the weather. During planting season, farms get new trees from a nursery. They’re about 30 to 60 centimeters, and they come in four-liter nursery pots.
Farmers plant these young trees directly into open fields. Each field contains many different generations growing at the same time. So the farmers fill gaps where older trees were cut in the past. So a single area might include new seedlings, five-year-old trees, eight-year-olds, and ten-year-olds all growing side by side.
After the new trees are in the ground, the hard part is over. But the trees do need some maintenance. Farmers have to trim all their trees twice a year. That’s what gives them that perfect cone-like shape that looks so good in our living rooms. The more trimming they do, the thicker the subsequent growth is. As one farmer said, if he didn’t trim his trees often, they’d just look like an overgrown bush.
Fast forward to the holiday season. Many farms open their doors in November and December for families to come and pick their tree out. The farmers put color-coded tags on the trees that are mature enough to be cut.
Customers can go out into the farm and cut their own. The farm lends you a saw and, crucially, a measuring stick. I can tell you from experience that a tree looks a lot smaller out in the open than it does in your living room, so measure carefully!
After you pick out the perfect tree for your house, you can cut it down yourself with a hand saw. The farm usually has carts to help get the tree to the car.
If that sounds like too much work, most farms also have fresh-cut trees near the entrance. Whether you cut your tree or not, the farm helps you wrap it in netting, take it to your car, and tie it to your roof.
Of course, not everyone can go to the farm to cut their own Christmas tree. So many farmers sell their trees in parking lots, at seasonal pop-ups, or to retailers like Home Depot and big grocery stores.
Every time the farm sells a Christmas tree, there’s a little bit of work left over: the stump. Farmers usually leave the stumps in the ground to rot for a while. After a few years, they’re easier to pull up.
Jeff’s take
There’s still a little work left after you get home. If you want a live Christmas tree, you need a stand. The stand is a heavy base, and that base has large screws that hold the trunk in place. It can be hard to get a natural tree to stand perfectly straight in your living room—but those imperfections are what makes a live tree special.
The stand doubles as a water bowl for the tree. Christmas trees drink a liter or two of water on their first day in the house, and a little less every day after that. But you do have to water the Christmas tree every two days, if not every day.
You want to keep it away from heaters, fireplaces, anything that can dry it out. If you have a dog at home, you’ll want to make sure the dog knows how to behave. Dogs won’t understand this strange tradition of bringing a live tree into the house, but they’ll get used to it quickly.
Every couple of days, you’ll need to vacuum the needles that fall. A live Christmas tree lasts between three and five weeks.
Then comes the sad part: saying goodbye. If you have a plastic tree, you just pack it up for next year. But owners of live trees have a little more work to do.
A lot of towns have special Christmas tree collection days in early January. You can also bring your old tree to a landscaper to recycle into mulch.
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