Interesting thread!

Do the trees trimmed in August put on enough new growth so that the cut ends are no longer conspicuous? That has always been my complaint about the Fraser firs we buy locally - but the smell divine!

I hope the Canaans do well for you - and smell like the Frasers!

@porkpal
Actually there is usually about 5 to 8 inches of new growth cut off sometimes less, to form the tree into a Christmas Tree. (about the end of August or early September.) We must wait until the new growth gets strong or stiff so we can see what needs to be trimmed.
It does not change the way the tree looks in any way except it looks like it has a hair cut and by the time it is cut to go to its new home, you would never know it was trimmed, except it is so perfect and there are no straggly ends sticking out. The odor of the cutting is definitely there when you walk in or near the fields. The color does not change but the odor of fresh cut fir is stronger.

When we bring them out of the field or the people bring them to us....I will show pictures of that later....we then put them on a shaker to be sure all mice, birds nests, dead cuttings or needles are then removed prior to bagging to load on the cars.

It will be years before we know what the Canaans will be smelling like.

Today I began mowing the grass and johnny jump ups in the back field. First mowing of the Spring and it was such fun. The bunnies living under the trees were running around trying to stay away from the mower but not too far from their nests. The little johnny jump ups are there by the thousands. I have no idea where they came from but as you can see, they are just beautiful and I hated to cut them off, but the chick weed was beginning to get long and that is not good for the trees.
They need air around the base to keep them healthy so off they had to go.

Zoom in on the picture and you will see how many are there.

Before I go on to talk about the Spruce, I wanted to show you a picture I took today (4/4/2016) of one of the sick Douglas Firs.
The disease comes out of the soil and it started here about 2014. The first year with lots of spraying and care the sick trees seemed to respond and the new growth for 2015 looked good until late summer and then it was obvious there was a problem. We were going to remove all the obvious sick ones (over 100) but we decided to give them another year of regular spraying with special spray etc. and see if we could save any of them. We did save some in 2014.

The first picture is a healthy douglas fir.



The second picture shows a sick douglas fir and how this particular disease affects the tree.



On the healthy tree you can not see the trunk or even light when you look at it. The sick one you can see how many needles have dropped and the trunk is showing....it was cloudy this morning when I took this one. If you zoom in you can see how bare the branches are in spots. It is so sad since the affected trees are all over 6 to 8 years old and in those years you spend a lot of time and money to keep them healthy. In this case I am afraid we will loose quite a few from that one field. There are several fields of douglas fir and the younger ones seem to be healthy so far. We can only pray.

Thank goodness we have all the fertilizer down because we no sooner finished the other night and it rained and it has been raining off and on but really windy for the past four days. Even the babies are leaning so now after it snows tomorrow we will begin staking the 500 new babies. Never ending with this crazy weather. The final result is worth it and the older trees love it.

If you thought I forgot to finish my story you were wrong. Just a very busy time here on the Tree Farm. All the babies had to be staked and the grass mowed for the first time between the rows. So, that is why I have not had a chance to sit down and finish telling you about the different trees we have .
One of the most popular trees we grow is the Norway Spruce. They are the ones that most places sell as a regular Christmas tree. The tiny needles are a real pain when they dry and fall off and go everywhere in the house. They also hurt when they are on the tree and you are working with or decorating the tree. These trees grow as tall as 100 ft. It is the official tree used at Rockefeller Center, New York.

Baby Concolor with new stakes holding up their tiny trunk and branches


Norway Spruce Field

I did not realize that the trees needed to be staked. That must be a tedious job!

They don't usually need to be staked but the wind here in NJ can raise the dickens with newly planted trees if they are not staked and we planted them during the worst time and winds were horrible.We are just 25 min from the ocean, the wind gets really strong at times and if you don't care how the trees grow, you don't have to stake them. But, since we are so fussy, we stake if they look like they need it. It also depends on how big the new plants are and how much they blow around during storms and just windy days.

What other varieties do you grow? We tried Xmas tree farming many years ago and planted mostly Douglas and grand fir. I like the grands best. I don't care for over-pruned trees, so we marketed ours as 'wild' Xmas trees. Found out quickly that if one doesn't keep them pruned up, they soon shoot up too much and we now have an Xmas tree forest (which is working well as a visual barrier between us and the neighbor). We are surrounded by Xmas tree farms, which usually have $1 spring seedling sales so now we just buy a half dozen or so per year (for family use) and once they get up to about 6-8' tall we either cut them down or just let them continue to grow in place. Not very scientific or organized, but works for the immediate family.

Bonehead said:What other varieties do you grow? We tried Xmas tree farming many years ago and planted mostly Douglas and grand fir. I like the grands best. I don't care for over-pruned trees, so we marketed ours as 'wild' Xmas trees. Found out quickly that if one doesn't keep them pruned up, they soon shoot up too much and we now have an Xmas tree forest (which is working well as a visual barrier between us and the neighbor). We are surrounded by Xmas tree farms, which usually have $1 spring seedling sales so now we just buy a half dozen or so per year (for family use) and once they get up to about 6-8' tall we either cut them down or just let them continue to grow in place. Not very scientific or organized, but works for the immediate family.

I think it depends on the farmer what trees you want to grow and how you want to represent them. If it works for you go for it. In this area we cater to a mix of city and county people since many of our customers are military as well as New Yorkers and Pennsylvania and New Jersey of course. One of the things they like about our place is the fact it is so well kept year round and they can watch the trees grow and when they come and buy, they are not walking in the wilderness and weeds up to their rumps. PLEASE don't think for one minute I am sounding snippy, I am certainly not. I am a great believer in doing what works and this works for us. The unfortunate part of it is it take so much more work. The spraying and fertilizing itself is a big job if you want to keep clean healthy trees. There are so many things that can affect the growth of your babies and larger trees, most people don't realize. My SIL is a Nurseryman by trade and was a VP of one of the largest Nurseries in the area before they decided to close due to the death of the oldest owner, so, he is very particular what goes in the ground and how we care for it. \
To answer your question we are growing Douglas Fir, Concolor Fir, Canaan Fir, Norway Spruce, and Blue Spruce. The planting is completed for now and the big thing now is to keep the grass cut between the rows so the place looks well kept and people begin to notice the babies. We are located on the corner of two busy roads and it is so fun when someone from NYC pull in the lane and say they want a particular tree in December. This happens frequently , so we tag it for them and they come back and get it in December. One of our NY customers did just that and it turned out the oldest tree and biggest tree we had on the farm. I told him he would need a trailer to haul it home and he said no problem. Here is a picture of that family cutting their tree in December.






To add to the fun, everyone gets a rudolph red nose to wear and these guys all wore theirs after they finally got the tree on the trailer. This was their picture before they began their trip back to New York State. We make sure everyone has plenty of help.


This family of grown brothers and father had more fun and they took pictures of trying to get it into their house and setting it up in their home and sent them to us to put on our page. I will show some other pictures as time goes on, but jut now I must get mowing fields because it is beginning to look like rain again. Have a great day.

What fun!

JB, your tree farm is lovely. Your pruning is quite impressive as well, great triangular shape. Around here, for some odd reason, most tree farmers prune to a really weird (to me) kind of rectangular shape with a rounded top. I don't get it. They remind me of big hotdogs. I suppose they may fit into a room better or something. I quit bringing Xmas trees inside about 4 years ago, we just put one out on our back deck with lights and bird-friendly ornaments, so a looser more casual tree form works for us. Some years, our pickings are slim - we had one we named Stubby (for obvious reasons) who is now about 30' tall in the front field. As an aside, we had an elderly neighbor who had a line of Doug firs he kept pruned to little 3' balls for at least 25 years that I know of. After his death, the new owners let the balls go and it was amazing how quickly they reverted back to their true form and are now a solid line of screening with no sign of the previous ball shape.

Only have three blue spruce left and doubt we will plant more of them. They are slow growers and it takes years to get a nice tree. They are my favorite tree but the concolor fir is much more popular. They get the longest tops and they seem to grow into them. The new growth is beautiful and blue....

We will now stay out of the fields except to spray because the new growth if hit by a mower or tractor will drop off. We must now wait until the new growth turns up. It starts growing facing toward the ground and when it firms up it stands straight out on the branch. It is much better to allow it to firm up then there is no damage to the tree and you do not loose any branches at the bottom.

It is interesting the way they grow at the top!

I am enjoying reading this thread and learning a lot. I love the Blue Spruce too!

A bit of frustration today. We waited until we were sure it was not going to rain to spray since it is a big job. Well, we sprayed late yesterday and didn't it rain about 2 a.m. That causes you to wonder if now we must wait and see or do it again. Nothing is easy it seems.

Thank you for your nice comments. I just thought it may be fun for people to see what actually goes into raising a Christmas Tree. Have a nice day. Talk to you soon again.

The new growth is still to soft to mow the grass between the rows and with the cool evenings and hot days it is really growing. I am not looking forward to the next mowing. It will take longer and be more difficult since now the trees are inches wider. Such fun dodging trees and seeing little bunnies running from one tree to another staying out of my path. I noticed the other day there was just bunny fur laying around. The hawks make a meal out of them and their babies every chance they get. So sad. You can hear them crying when the hawks fly off with them in their feet. I could cry sometimes just watching that. Bunnies can not fight back any predator. They can only run and pray. (I wonder if bunnies pray?)

The quit time if over. The new growth is strong and beautiful and the activities begin to keep the trees healthy and get them ready to look like real Christmas Trees.

Bag Worms are beginning to invade, which means early morning spraying before the sea breeze begins or the West winds blow and spraying can not be done with a wind blowing. They were out in the fields pulling any signs of the worms as well as spraying.

The grass has been mowed in the rows between the trees and we are looking good again. The growing period is so important but it does keep us from maintaining the fields between the tree rows. All is well now so the regular mowing will continue. The weather is unusually hot and dry just now and we had to irrigate the babies. We already lost some due to the heat.

The pictures today will show you how the trees, from big babies to grown trees look after they have finished their new growth period.
This is the big baby field a few days ago.


Medium baby field a few days ago.




Teeny baby field a few days ago.


One of the big trees before trimming


As soon as the heatwave is over and the trimming has begun we will show you how it is done.

The untrimmed tree looks really good to me already.