Clemson Cooperative Extension's state Christmas tree agent Mark Arena and Clemson University professor emeritus & owner of Hilltop Christmas Tree Farm Dr. George Kessler discuss key tips to lengthening the life of your Christmas tree.
Transcript:
The whole process of growing Christmas trees is something that kind of gets in your soul and it becomes something that you do as a matter of love for the season and of love for the people that are going to participate in the season. Typically, all the Christmas tree farms in South Carolina, they're open Thanksgiving Day, it's just kind of a family tradition to have Thanksgiving dinner and then go out to a Christmas tree farm and get a cut tree or a fresh tree. So, that's kind of when the season starts, and it can go all the way to Christmas Eve. Some people that's their holiday ritual to get a tree on Christmas Eve and put it up to celebrate Christmas in that manner. One of the things to take into consideration when buying a tree is getting it as clean as possible before you take it into your house. A lot of the farms offer a shaking mechanism where they actually put the tree on a vibrating mechanism and they get the dead needles and various things like that to fall out of the tree. The other thing with regards to buying trees on a lot or something of this nature, a simple way to check and see how fresh that tree is is to bump it on the ground or bump it on the sidewalk or something of this nature. If you get a bunch of needles that's shedding out of the tree when you do that, you probably better look for another tree. Look for a healthy tree. All the Christmas tree farmers in South Carolina, they're growing trees in the ground, that's my preference because it's a healthier, it's a local tree and they typically tend to do better. One of the things that we try to emphasize with people when they get their tree is that there are some steps that they need to take as far as keeping it healthy. Number one is to have the proper stand to put the tree in because you need one that's going to hold at least a gallon of water. There's a lot of rumors out there saying, you know, to add sugar, soda, baking soda or whatever. From everything that I've heard, they really don't enhance the life of the tree. The best thing you can do is keep that water base full and let that tree take up fresh water. The other thing is is that they make sure they get the tree promptly in water once they leave this place. We tell them they have one hour to have the tree back in water and if it's not back in water in that time, they need to recut it themselves. On a pre-cut tree which you get at your large box stores and/or a Christmas tree farm, you'll want to at least an inch of the trunk off and create a new fresh cut that will be able to take that water up and once again, check the water reservoir on the tree stand on a daily basis and keep it full throughout the entire time that you have your tree up. We also tell them they need to keep it in a place in the home which is away from, you know, ducts, fireplaces, and wood stoves. Make sure they’re using proper electrical equipment around the tree, something that doesn’t have shorts and things in them. Some people do get out a misting bottle or a hose and they wet down the tree, but once again, there’s not really much water uptake through the foliage once the tree’s cut, so we don’t recommend that. Especially if you have electrical cords and other electrical objects on the tree, it’s just not the safe thing to do. Some people ask, “What can I do with my tree at the end of the year?” You know, the season’s over and they take down the tree. There are several options, it really depends on where you live. Lake Harrell a few years ago was actually asking for Christmas trees to put in the lake to create fish habitat, so look around in your local newspaper and maybe ask other people what they’r doing, but a lot of the landfills will take the trees, it takes up some space, other companies are actually taking the trees and mulching them up to create mulch, so there’s a lot of opportunities to recycle your tree and that’s what I’d encourage you to do: try to recycle these natural products and get them back into the system. Another interesting thing that you can do with it is to take it outside and kind of use it as a bird feeder here for a couple of months or until spring comes. It gives the family the chance to still see the tree still in use in some fashion right around their house.
