Christmas tree farms see uptick in demand; recommend getting trees before Dec. 15

According to the farm’s marketer, Brenda Gardiner, the act of coming out and picking a tree is a special experience. She spoke about one family who came out for a visit, and it was quite a sight to behold.

“Adults all piled into the front of the truck and six kids in the back and they’re driving down here, and they all went out into the woods and picked their tree,” Gardiner said.

“They were coming back, and they were all laughing and it’s just – it’s that – being outside and picking the one.”

For tree farmer Geordie McKay of McKay Tree Farm, his season is well underway, and he said when he first started his operation 40 years ago, there was a big demand for real trees before a trend of buying plastic followed for a time. However, within the last five to 10 years the demand for real trees has become popular again.

“I think the average consumer is realizing it’s the green alternative, it’s recyclable verses a piece of plastic made Asia somewhere and shipped over here by ship that usually people keep a few years, and they end up in a landfill for another, well whatever, 10,000 years,” he said.

He explained every tree they grow is recycled, drawing in the carbon and whether it’s mulched or burned, the same amount of carbon is released back into the atmosphere.

“It’s the environmental choice for sure.”

This year, he said due to “quite a few nice rains,” they had one of their best harvests ever. and the farm, As an agrologist, McKay knew to begin small and build up his business over four decades.

“There was the demand – nobody was growing real trees at that time – I don’t thing anyone in Western Canada, so they were cutting wild trees, but they weren’t growing real trees so, I decided to try this venture,” he said.

“It takes 10 to 14 years to harvest your tree.”

That’s part of the problem and why there is a major shortage of Christmas trees now. Farmers must spend time and money to get a new tree farm going and the younger generations aren’t interested in taking over.

“There’s a major shortage all right across North America – the American’s quit growing trees probably about 12 years-ago,” McKay said.

That decision led to a shortage, which led them to buy up hundreds of thousands of trees out of Quebec and the Maritimes, which in turn put a short fall on the Canadian market.

“There’s just not enough trees for the demand right now.”

As a result, people who still need to buy a tree should best do it before December 15, as McKay said there will be none to be had at the stores.

Meanwhile, for Katerynych, while it hasn’t been a great season on his farm of roughly 25,000 trees, this past weekend they hosted a tree sale event, and he said it was a fun experience.

“I had the most interesting people,” he said, though he is expecting a decrease in sales.

Gardiner added part of the issue they’re seeing is a lack of the white stuff.

“People don’t get that rush,” she said.

“People are just not buying yet, so I think that once there’s some snow – I personally wouldn’t want to trudge through a foot of snow to go find my tree – but lots of people do.”

Another trend they see on the farm is people leaving the tree cutting to the eleventh hour.

“Some people get their Christmas tree – they say Santa Claus brings their tree.”

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julia.lovettsquires@pattisonmedia.com

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by Julia Lovett-Squires

Christmas tree farms see uptick in demand; recommend getting trees before Dec. 15

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