what type of tree do you put up?

I like white pines, but you get LOTS of needles to deal with and they tend to get spotty and uneven when they mature.

Thanks for the info, guess that's off the list..

I need strong branches too, have lots of ornaments that were my parents. Both have been gone for a long time now, so these are priceless to me. Also have some that were bought when the kids were born and some they made in kindergarten, again irreplaceable!!

never heard of white pine for an xmass tree - is this the same tree we consider a weed here? I have 30 or so you can have ------------ most are between 70 and 100 ft tall.

I've got to say YAY Victor, Lucy, and some of the others here. We're Christmas tree farmers, and my father was before me, so 80 years almost of growing Christmas trees.

We do balsam usually. The smell is the best. One of my favorites, an unusual one is picea omorika, or Serbian spruce. It has an unusual form, growing both upright and weeping, and makes for a graceful Christmas tree. The underside of the needles are white, and the topside shiny.

Yes - I like omorika too. So you have a 'cut your own' business, Polly?

We have always had a balsam. Polly do you have any advice about discouraging needles from dropping? We usually keep the tree in the garage until the last moment before bringing it in to the heat of the house.

The smell is very important!!

No Victor, we cut. And we also donate to the Boy Scouts, who then sell them,

Lucy, Of course, the best way is to get a fresh cut tree, but if you're buying it already cut, make sure it's fresh as can be, by holding it uppright and shaking it a little, or picking it up a few inches and dropping it on it's butt. If a lot of needles fall off, don't buy it. Then have them make a fresh cut. Get it home and put it right in water, even if you're keeping it out in the garage. Make sure you keep it well watered, some trees will go through water like crazy when fresh cut. The stuff you buy in stores to extend the life actually does work. It's similar to powder you use on cut flowers. If the base of the tree dries out at all, resin will form over it, and the uptake of water will be limited.

Balsam is, in my opinion, the best smelling tree, but not the best for holding needles. Frasier and Douglas are good sniffers, and hold needles very well. Concolor is another good one for needle retention that some places now offer. But you can't beat the Christmas smell of balsam.

And honestly, trees drop needles when cut. So you're probably doing all you can to extend the life anyway.

Frasier is always my first choice.

frasier here too because it has stronger branches although not always available where we get our tree and usually more $$.

how does everyone get them out of the house without a mess? we have not found those bags to work or fit the tree to be more accurate. i have begun cutting off the branches in the house and putting them in bags to move out - usually ours barely fits through the slider door, going out it leaves a trail of needles everywhere and an absolute mess at the door and on the deck. by cutting it up inside most of the needles are in one place and the shop vac takes care of the rest.

I use a reusable poly bag. Think I got it from Lee Valley.

Don't worry Polly John does the bouncing bit. Not sure about the water will have to suggest it to him. We don't buy this early but I bet the ed fund gets them shipped from afar.

Here it is:

http://www.leevalley.com/gifts/page.aspx?c=2&p=58260&cat=4,104,53211

victor thank you! - will order one today - 8' is about the size of our trees

Sure. Just be careful not to drag it on the concrete or asphalt outside. It can rip that way.

got it - i burn mine in the spring

We have a big sheet of heavy plastic we just use over and over. We lay it down on the floor, tip the tree onto it, and pull the bag tight, that way it fits through the door. We leave it outside for the winter for the critters to play in, and in the spring when we toss it, I always seem to find an ornament I missed.

lol I just had my favorite fake one returned to me. My neighbor lost her sister to cancer last year before Christmas. she lives alone and wasn't going to put up a tree.. When she told me that I went next door with our plastic inflatable tree! We got this blow up vinyl tree about 2 ft tall with plastic inflatable ornaments at a Yankee Swap one year at my husband's company Christmas Party. It was a funny joke present and I loved it! Two or three years later we went on a Carribean cruise over Christmas. The kids were bummed, no tree! but wait! Mom had the blow up vinyl tree which folded flat in a suitcase. So we took it on our cruise! It was the perfect thing.
My neighbor loved it when I brought it over. It made her holiday and kept her from being too sad. It's back home now and waiting for its next opportunity to shine. It has been such a friendly tree! I am going to rummage around for the picture we took of it on the cruise.
Martha

We had a neighbor when I was growing up who used white birsh trees for their x-mas tree. It was definitley different. The real ones I grew up with wre used as brush jumps in the spring for me to practice jumping my pony with.

This message was edited Dec 1, 2009 12:29 PM

This message was edited Dec 1, 2009 12:29 PM

Now THAT is a different Christmas tree.

We cut christmas tree boughs after the holiday & use as mulch over the iris seed boxes. If I remember the neighbor J-2 mentions was from Eng by way of S,Africa so had different tradition.

Martha - love your blow-up tree stories! Please do post a shot of it!

We bring the tree home and put it in a bucket of water and then untie it for a few weeks outside. Then just before we bring it into the house we give it a fresh cut. and re-wrap it up in a big blue plastic tarp to bring it in the house, so it doesn't make a mess or scratch the walls on the way in.

After Christmas we put the same blue plastic tarp on the floor around the base of the tree and then cut about 1/2 the branches off and wrap them up and take them out in the tarp, then we do it all over again. No mess, no scratched walls. Then we drill holes in the left over trunk and fill them with Peanut butter and hang it up in a big pine for the birds. They love it.

Here was a big Oops that we had a few years ago at our house. This year we will be in Vt and so we can just pitch the tree out of the second floor sliding glass doors out into the woods. I will take the ornaments off first. Patti

Visiting this forum again. I love to hear about what types of Christmas trees you all have and why you do real vs. artificial trees.

We get a white pine called a Concolor Fir. If you take a needle off and break it, the whole room smells like citrus. It is medium needled and has never lost a needle for us, and we keep it up until we feel like taking it down, which can be anywhere from the beginning of January to early February. It's just the most amazing tree. It's part of what makes Christmas special around here.

Welcome back, magnolia! Sounds like a great tree. I want to plant one.

That's what I bought today, a concolor fir, from the farm down the road--we had one last year, & needle retention was very good, & the smell is heavenly. Last year I managed to get a 4' which is what I need because I have to put it up myself, but this year their smallest was 6'---guess I'll get it in the house somehow!

Bluish in color?

Thanks Mags!! I'll be on the look out for one now. ^_^

They're bluish green, Victor. Not as blue as a good blue spruce. And like most conifers quite variable. They are quite quick growing, and do grow to around at least 50 feet. Needles are softer than a blue spruce, and the cones get to about 4" long, and point upwards. It's a nice tree. More drought tolerant than a lot of conifers.

There are some nice cultivars of it, including a weeper, and more compact forms.

Our concolor fir I would definitely say is a green, lighter though than a lot of trees. It is classified as a white pine.

Searching for another option around here for getting it, with many tree farms around, only 2 out of dozens grew them. The growers tell me (in all separate instances) it is a slower grower and quite fussy. They are usually more expensive for that reason and will be less available overall. But what a treat it is to have one! I love the farmers that do all of this work so that I am able to enjoy one of the best trees around.

The scent alone will have you coming back. Mmmmmmmmmmm. It's really special. That's what memories are made of ;)

Here's the link I was going to add. Aren't they adorable?

http://www.ingham.org/ce/hort/Horticulture/concolor_fir.gif

It is definitley lighter colored than many conifers. But Magnolialover, after years of growing it, I would not say it was slower growing, and the only thing fussy is it doesn't like to be waterlogged. But I find it to be faster growing than many of the Christmas trees. Definitely faster growing then the blue spruces.

When we were kids we cut the tree every year on my birthday weekend. We used to bundle up in those snowsiuts that had the matching ski pants and head out to our great uncles land and then when we moved away from "home" we found a place to cut down the tree.

Then it would go into a bucket in the garage and get decorated the next weekend. My dad would put on the lights at halftime and then me, my mom and my sisters would decorate.

Sometimes I wonder if I am a bad mom for not giving my kids the memories and magic that I had as a kid.

Maybe it is a climate thing, I am no Christmas Tree expert, by any means ;) The growers around here think it's a bear to grow. We have many blue spruces at these farms too. Maybe it's the soil, maybe it's the climate. Guess the only way to know is to buy my own and plant it. I really should, you know. I just know that I would never be able to cut that one down if I did.

It could be a climate thiing, or it coud be a soil thing. I get my trees from Western Maine Nurseries, and I know they are on sandy soil, also.

Here's their description. "The Concolor Fir (or White Fir) is somewhat similar in general appearance to the Colorado Blue Spruce, meaning it is a very attractive tree with a medium greenish blue color, although the needle structure is different. They are fast growing, can grow as high as 150 feet and live over 300 years."

The reason I buy my trees from Western Maine is that their growing conditions are so similar to mine. So you may be right, it's a soil thing.

It' s interesting they may be slow growers in other climates/ soil, though.

The soil here varies from heavy clay to silt loam. Sandier soils in Northern Wisconsin. Funny, when I asked the growers around here to suggest a similar variety, they all exclaimed "There's nothing like a concolor fir!". Lol.

We had a blue spruce in my childhood garden just north of Milwaukee. It grew from the height of the picket fence to way above the telephone wires in 19 yrs.

I might have told this story before, so if I did, please bear with me.

My father had grown Christmas trees for years, and lived in a house with a very small yard. So after many years he found the 'perfect' blue spruce out of the Chrismas tree acreage to put in the yard. It was probably about 5' tall, and the best blue i've ever seen. He babied the tree, fed, watered it, pruned it perfectly. It was a glorius specimen. He lived in the village, and everyone admired the tree. He decorated it until it got too big for him to do.

About two weeks before Christmas, when the tree was about 20 feet tall, someone had 'topped' it. Cut probably the best Chrismas tree around right from the top of Dad's blue spruce. Cut it maybe 8 feet from the top.

My Dad was mild mannered, but if he had ever found the person that did that. ....

That concolor sounds like the tree I may look for this year.

Polly, I bet dad was none too happy.

When we first moved to this house we got a balled blue spruce, we had it delivered and when hubby went to see if the guys needed help he noticed that the ball was rather huge, both of the guys claimed they didn't dig it. Well we tried to get it in the dorr it wouldn't fit so it went right thru the garage into the backyard where it was planted. Needless to say we put the artiificial one up that year.