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Christmas tree shortage? Sales brisk this season

Some locations already sold out as demand for trees is hot

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED DEC 7, 2020

A real fir or cedar is part of many folks' holiday traditions and decor. Sales of Christmas trees have been brisk this year, report Sacramento-area lots and nurseries. (Photos: Kathy Morrison)

It’s barely December and already pickings at Sacramento-area Christmas tree lots and nurseries are looking pretty slim.

Are we having a Christmas tree shortage in 2020? Or a COVID Christmas tree run?

Popular sources for holiday trees report brisk demand for their inventory, which started arriving just before Thanksgiving. For example, The Plant Foundry (which offers local delivery) had only one tree left on Dec. 2.

Commercial tree lots throughout Northern California reported sales were 30 percent ahead of last year’s pace. According to the New York Times, some states such as Michigan reported a 50 percent increase.

This increase in demand for real Christmas trees, dropped needles and all, may be tied to the pandemic as families plan to stay home and create holiday memories. Artificial trees also are selling briskly.

Although fresh trees may be sold out soon, there are enough trees to forest our usual holiday decorating, according to the National Christmas Tree Association.

Most farmed trees sold in the Sacramento area are Oregon grown. But several farms in El Dorado and Placer counties offer choose-and cut trees, which are still in good supply. (Check out the El Dorado County farms here: https://chooseandcut.com/area-map .) With pandemic precautions in place, those local farms plan to stay open until their inventory is sold.

It takes about 10 years to bring a typical 6-foot tree to market, according to the association. After a glut of farmed trees during the 2008 recession, many farms did cut back on planting seedlings. But that reduction was not enough to create a shortage now.

And what appears to be a shortage may actually be an illusion. The two busiest weekends for selling trees are the two weekends immediately after Thanksgiving, according to the association. An estimated 75 to 90 percent of trees are usually sold by that second Sunday, which was Dec. 6.

So those near empty tree lots may just be normal after all.

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Keywords:

gardening Sacramento holiday decor coronavirus trees evergreens Christmas trees choose-and-cut trees Plant Foundry

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Food in My Back Yard Series

May 6: Maintain soil moisture with mulch for garden success

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Garden Checklist for week of May 11

Make the most of the lower temperatures early in the week. We’ll be back in the 80s by Thursday.

* Plant, plant, plant! It’s prime planting season in the Sacramento area. Time to set out those tomato transplants along with peppers and eggplants. Pinch off any flowers on new transplants to make them concentrate on establishing roots instead of setting premature fruit.

* Direct-seed melons, cucumbers, summer squash, corn, radishes, pumpkins and annual herbs such as basil.

* Harvest cabbage, lettuce, peas and green onions.

* In the flower garden, direct-seed sunflowers, cosmos, salvia, zinnias, marigolds, celosia and asters. (You also can transplant seedlings for many of the same flowers.)

* Plant dahlia tubers.

* Transplant petunias, marigolds and perennial flowers such as astilbe, columbine, coneflowers, coreopsis, dahlias, rudbeckia and verbena.

* Keep an eye out for slugs, snails, earwigs and aphids that want to dine on tender new growth.

* Feed summer bloomers with a balanced fertilizer.

* For continued bloom, cut off spent flowers on roses as well as other flowering plants.

* Add mulch to the garden to maintain moisture. Mulch also cuts down on weeds. But don’t let it mound around the stems or trunks of trees or shrubs. Leave about a 6-inch-to-1-foot circle to avoid crown rot or other problems.

* Remember to weed! Pull those nasties before they set seed.

* Water early in the day and keep seedlings evenly moist.

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