How we grow our Christmas Trees

We grow all of our planting stock from seed in our nursery. Our seed for our Mountain Balsam Fir, Cooks Balsam fir and Fraser x Balsam fir Hybrid is picked from our own seed orchard, where our best trees have been saved for propagation. We also grow Fraser Fir and Canaan Fir from seed that we buy from premium seed orchards.

Starting in early spring we prepare the land for fall planting. The land is fallowed throughout the summer. Fallowing eliminates the sod and softens the soil making ideal planting conditions for fall field planting. All of our trees are hand planted into a grid pattern. The spacing is six feet between the rows with 5 to 6 feet between trees in the row. The spacing depends on tree species and target Christmas Tree size.

At planting time, we lift our transplants in the morning and plant them in the afternoon of the same day. This minimizes the time our transplants are out of the ground,which reduces transplant shock and increases our transplant survival rates. In the spring time we replace any trees that do make it through the first winter. Starting in the first year after planting, we maintain weed control to prevent weeds from competing with our newly planted transplants. Each transplant is also fertilized in first year after planting. These cultural practices get our transplants off to a good start.

We weed, feed and maintain insect control annually until harvest. In the third or fourth year after planting we basal prune all of our trees. The next year we begin shearing the trees annually until they become premium Christmas Trees. This process takes approximately 6 to 10 years from field planting.

If you would like more information about how we grow our Christmas Trees call Bill at (802) 754-6934.