Interior designer Carolyn Allman always displays a real Christmas tree in her Ashland home, but this year, she decided an eight-foot-tall Noble fir, dressed in white twinkling lights, could still deliver a festive look from outside, on the deck, viewed through a picture window.
“I can’t wait until it’s covered in snow,” she said, seeing the tree while standing near her dining table. “It loves being outside yet it feels like it is in the house.” She said it’s often hard to keep a real tree watered and fresh indoors for the whole season. “I miss the scent,” she said, but there’s more room for the family’s annual Christmas Eve sleepover. “For our seven grandchildren, space is important.”
Allman is an early bird, who visits Wishing Well garden shop in Medford in late November with her husband, Wayne, to find an Oregon-grown Christmas tree.
Wishing Well owners Dennis and Carie Trost say some customers arrive right after Thanksgiving to have the largest selection to choose from, “even though all of our cut trees are nice,” Dennis said, and “we predict we will have enough trees,” Carie added.
Prices for Nobel firs ($79 for 6-7 feet) and Douglas firs ($59 for 6-7 feet) and greenery at Wishing Well are the same as last year.
Over the years, the Trosts have seen increased interest in Silvertip fir trees (priced at $11 a foot) that grow in higher elevations with more space between the branches for ornaments. Another trend they’ve noticed is a preference for taller trees for great rooms with vaulted ceilings and clients who want their tree flocked to look as if it was still in the forest.
Whatever the tradition, new or old, Oregon growers, who produce more Christmas trees than any other state in the nation, say sellers are well stocked for the holidays, with a variety of trees, in all sizes and sheared over the years into a classic cone shape or a looser, natural look.
“Each tree has its own personalty,” said Anna Zerkel of the five-acre Little Z Christmas Tree Farm in West Linn, which has 10,000 trees that take years to shape and mature. “We don’t do it all the same, row after row, cookie cutter. Some are fuller, some tapered and tall. Everyone is looking for something different.”
Little Z Christmas Tree Farm customers walk through groves of 13 varieties of trees, including the highly desirable Noble fir. Here, it’s $15 a foot for trees 5-8 feet tall, $17 a foot for 9 feet, $20 a foot for 10-13 feet and taller trees are individually priced.
People pick out the tree they want, then the farm’s workers cut the trunk at ground level, carry the tree to a “shaker” to remove loose needles and load it in the customers’ vehicle to be taken home.
“Our focus is on the trees and the people,” said Zerkel, who founded the farm 25 years ago with her husband, Nate, who has a forestry degree from Oregon State University. She said their farm, with chores year round, is a labor of love and they look forward to seeing people they knew as youngsters return with their children.
“There’s one girl I met when she was 5 and just barely able to peek over the counter at the candy canes we give out,” said Anna Zerkel. Since then, Zerkel has heard about the girl’s quinceanera celebration and plans to go to college.
Anna Zerkel is proud her farm is part of people’s holiday traditions and that Oregon tree growers are environmentalists. “We love trees and their purpose here is to be cut down and we replant a younger tree that absorbs more carbon dioxide and emits oxygen,” she said.
Often Christmas trees are grown on marginal lands, unsuitable for other crops, and the trees help hold the soil and prevent erosion or loss of top soil, according to the Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Association.
Environmental organization The Nature Conservancy advocates for real trees over petrochemical plastic ones that require intensive carbon emissions to produce.
After the holidays, real Christmas trees, stripped of nonorganic materials, can be used as wood chips, compost and wildlife habitats for birds and fish. Scouts and other nonprofit groups fundraise by recycling real Christmas trees.
The U.S. Forest Service encourages people to help thin densely populated stands by buying a permit at Recreation.gov and cutting a small-diameter Christmas tree in designated areas of some national forests.
Bend-based Linda Ly writes in her award-winning Garden Betty site about the joys of calling out “timber” after cutting a tree in one of Oregon’s national forests. Her family’s tradition also creates memories of the “snowshoe and cross-country ski adventures we tack on, the little treats we bring in the car, the impromptu sledding and snowball fights, and the dinners we always grab at our favorite restaurants on the way home.”
Dennis Trost of Wishing Well in Medford has been selling cut trees for more than 40 years. He said some customers like to have the trees flocked, which keeps the foliage fresh and flocking is a registered fire retardant.
For some clients, he has added crystals and painted flocked trees colors like blue or purple. He has also created themed trees, orange ones for Oregon State Beavers’ fans and green and yellow ones for University of Oregon Ducks’ fans.
His most unusual request: To cover a 12-foot Noble fir in flocking and black paint. The customers wanted to mount it upside from their cathedral ceiling so it could spin around. “I did not ask why,” he said.
Read more Family businesses grow Oregon’s Christmas tree farms
— Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072
jeastman@oregonian.com | @janeteastman