By JANE HOUIN
Ohio Correspondent WOOSTER, Ohio — Once the decision has been made to purchase a live Christmas tree for the holidays, the question arises: How do I keep it looking good throughout the season?
Roger Dush of the Pine Tree Barn in Wooster, Ohio, says a lot of the success at keeping a live tree looking good for the long haul begins before one even picks it out to bring home. Selecting the right species and making sure the tree is fresh are critical decisions before the tree even crosses the home threshold.
The Pine Tree Barn, a third-generation family tree farm, sells both fresh-cut and dug trees, and it guarantees customers’ satisfaction. If a customer is unhappy with a tree once they get it home, Dush will replace it for them. But the key to being satisfied, he said, is knowing what tree species best fits your needs and desires.
“You need a variety that will hold up,” he said. “If you get a Norway Spruce, there will be needles to clean up every day. It’s terrible as a Christmas tree.”
Species selection is key.
“Frasier Fir is everyone’s favorite,” said Dush, who is supplying Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star LeBron James with a 25-foot Frasier Fir for the holidays this year. “But not everyone can grow them, because there are pretty particular on soil acidity and wind.”
To help make sure his customers are happy with their purchase, he only sells cut Frasier Firs, not dug ones; it helps prevent a customer from being disappointed if the tree doesn’t grow when they plant it. Though the species grows extremely well in the Smoky Mountains, they are much trickier to grow further north.
“We grow a wonderful blue spruce in this part of the country,” Dush said.
It has a beautiful color, but is very prickly and doesn’t hold its needles well. So in this case, The Pine Tree Barn only sells dug blue spruce trees.
Douglas Firs have a nice lemon-balm aroma that is popular, said Dush, and Canaan Firs are also popular.
“They are kind of a cross between a Frasier Fir and a Canadian Balsam,” he said. “They are much more tolerant to our growing conditions and not quite as picky.”
The old standby Scotch Pine is by far Dush’s least favorite live tree, because it is difficult to grow, requires a lot of spraying and maintenance, is susceptible to disease and is almost always crooked.
“When I was a kid, Scotch Pine was the king of trees,” he said, and while it used to make up approximately 80 percent of the Christmas trees grown, today it’s down to around 3 percent.
“It takes around 10 years to grow a tree, so it’s a lot about forecasting what people want. They just don’t want the same type of tree that was being sold 30 years ago.”
While White Pines make good lumber trees, they often have “loppy” limbs that people don’t like to decorate. “People tend to like heavier limbs for hanging ornaments on, and they like to be able to hand them farther in,” Dush said, compared to years past when decorations were just hung on the tips of the branches.
Once you’ve selected the species you want, Dush said the number-one tip to keeping your tree looking good is making sure you are buying a fresh-cut tree … and you are not going to find a fresh tree at a box store.
“Everyone gets a bad name from old trees,” he said. Trees can be kept moist by keeping their trunks in moist sawdust and by being kept in the shade.
“But even if your tree was just cut the day before, you need to make a fresh cut on the trunk before you put it up in your house,” Dush added.
“Trees are not much different than us: When they get a cut, their natural defense mechanism is to scab over the cut.
“The base gums up the tree to prevent moisture loss, but it also prevents new moisture from getting in, You pretty much have to make a new cut on all trees.”
More tips for keeping your live tree looking good through the holidays can be found at the Pine Tree Barn’s website, www.pinetreebarn.com |
