Every year we buy a cut tree, and pay a pretty price for a nicely-shaped Nordmann pine with soft needles. The last couple of years we have noticed that the garden center is shaving down the bottom 6-8 inches of the trunks to a point, with something like a giant pencil sharpener. I asked the staff at the garden center about this, and they told me that they shave the trunks so that the diameter fits into the standard sized tree stand.
This kind of make sense (the diameter of the trunk is otherwise pretty wide), but this means that the part of the trunk that ends up in the water is below the level of the bark and cambium. It is my understanding that the uptake of the water into the tree goes through the cambium. No cambium, no water absorption. And sure enough, our tree did not drink any of the water we gave it and the needles turned dry and hard within two weeks.
My takeaway lesson for next year will either be to shop elsewhere (though I saw the same practice at at least one other place) or to saw off the shaved portion so that the cambium reaches the water. But it does seem bizarre that seeming experts would do something that they knew would shorten the useful period of the tree (and increase risk of fire as well).
I would like to hear from people what they consider good practices for the maintenance of cut pine trees. Do you agree with my proposed watering strategy? What about other measures, like spraying the needles, adding chemicals to the water etc? Or is it a futile struggle and trees will dry out after 2 weeks inevitably?
You are right, IME. The tree needs to be cut at a right angle at the bottom so that the bark stays intact all the way down. Then the freshly cut end needs to be submerged in water inside the stand, without drying up even momentarily.
Every Christmas tree stand I’ve seen has an adjustable opening, where you fit the tree in question by turning a set of thumb screws. Is this not so in the U.S.? Of course there’s a limit to the thumb screw range. If the tree base doesn’t fit, you cut it at bottom so far up that it fits. This gets the freshly cut requirement done, too.
I’ve started buying my tree direct from a tree farm where they cut the tree down to order and deliver it same or next day. This has revealed to me just how ‘old’ the trees I used to buy at nurseries must be, because now my Nordman Fir hardly drops at all.
They are doing the thing that reduces returns or complaints of “The tree you sold me doesn’t fit in my stand”. Or worse yet, “The tree you sold me doesn’t fit in the stand you sold me.”
That’s the only concern they have. Otherwise their business is cash-and-carry. Once you leave the lot they do not care what happens next. At all.
Nordmann fir technically. But yes, you should be freshly cutting the trunk of any tree you buy on a lot just prior to putting it into the tree stand, and of course making sure it has plenty of water at all times.
Why would attention to these factors increase profitability? Not their problems. By the time these problems emerge, tree selling season is over, they’re packed up and gone.
Yeah that pencil-sharpened trunk thing always felt sketchy to me. I usually re-cut the bottom at home and suddenly the tree actually drinks water. Night and day difference.
Same experience here. If the bottom dries even a little, it’s basically done. Most stands I’ve used have those thumb screws too, you just trim until it fits. Simple, but people skip it.
Many people put up the tree shortly before Christmas and take it down again shortly after. They don’t really need it to last. They do need it to fit in their stand, which might not open wide enough for the tree they want.
In years when we buy a Christmas tree, we get it freshly cut across the bottom, set it up in the stand, and pour hot water around the base. In theory that’s to loosen congealed sap and open up the little vessels. In practice, it’s probably just family superstation. But the trees do drink water rapidly for a couple of weeks.
In my neighborhood, I’m still seeing Christmas trees on the curb. Perhaps, dried out Christmas trees are a good reminder that no holiday needs to be dragged out for a month or more.
I’ve never gone in for those Xmas tree stands. I just fetch a large terracotta pot from the garden and wedge the tree trunk inside with logs. And I never water it, basically out of laziness.
Am I a tree-hugging granola-chewing psycho for daring to suggest one buy a living tree (i.e. with roots), which can then be planted somewhere outside after the holidays are over? I’ve always found the practice of unceremoniously dumping the poor things at the curb in early January to be hopelessly barbaric and self-contradictory.
eh, I think your idea is a fine thought for those interested, but let’s not conflate the cutting of christmas trees as comparable to the indiscriminate clearing of the Amazon rainforest. Most commercial christmas tree farms use sustainable methods to maintain and preserve green space and tree stock over the years.