We left the tree kiosk here in Montreal with a Balsam wanting the tree that was most fragrant but the very night we got it home it stopped smelling at all. Like, no smell unless you bury your face in and move branches and even then very faint. It was filling our car with scent even in its plasic bag on the way home from the very cold place we bought it from, and even while it was standing in the bag when we got home. Any idea why it might have lost all its scent just a few hours later when it went into the stand with water?

Thanks for any help.

Your nose got used to the smell so it 'filters' it out. Same with your normal house smells, which you don't notice but visitors do. Invite someone who doesn't have a Balsam fir over and they'll tell you how good it smells. And about how garlicky your house smells!

CalPolygardener said: Your nose got used to the smell so it 'filters' it out. Same with your normal house smells, which you don't notice but visitors do. Invite someone who doesn't have a Balsam fir over and they'll tell you how good it smells. And about how garlicky your house smells!

Yeah, I know about olfactory fatigue but I really don't think this is what's happening. Firstly I have a very acute sense of smell, may come from working in food. But also, I remember years where the tree had a strong scent for weeks. It just seems this one has dissipated far sooner than what one would expect.

Maybe your tree needs to be re-cut. If the tree isn't soaking up the water in the tree stand, the sap isn't flowing and the tree will lose its smell. Just a thought.

My other thought is the forest always smells its piney-est best when its hot out.

It might also be that the trees were sprayed with a pine-scented product to make them seem more appealing, but the product quickly lost its scent due to the products volatility.

.... reminds me of when we were selling our last home. The realtor suggested chopping up an apple, sprinkling on a bit of cinnamon, and putting it in the oven at 350* just before the house was to be shown. The apple goes into the preheated oven and the oven gets turned off as we leave a few minutes before they were scheduled to arrive. I can't say with certainty that it worked, but the first person it was shown to did buy the house.

Al

A fresh cut is a minimum of one inch off the trunk bottom. And the tree ABSOLUTELY MUST be in water within an hour of the cut. The timeline is incremental: half hour is better than an hour, 15 minutes is better than half an hour, 5 minutes is better than 10 minutes. Once air gets suck up into the stem, those particular cells can no longer conduct water.

Water stress closes the "breathing holes" in the needles and slows the production and emanation of scents.

Also, scents in general are much more volatile (disperse more quickly) as temperature increases. Think of how pine pitch hardens when cold. When the temperature increases, any such scent is going to initially "explode" until it reaches an equilibrium with the ambient temperature. This explains your in-car experience. And of course, standing in the bag, the scent is confined to as small area, and so stays "concentrated".