Christmas tree sellers handle customers’ demands, drought
The days following Thanksgiving tend to be the busiest for Christmas tree sellers. But, dealers and growers are stumped trying to fill customers’ demands. Anthony Gonzales, the nursery manager at McShane’s Nursery says he is seeing a shift in what shoppers want.
“There’s a shortage of big trees because the trend for the last three years, they didn’t have many sales on that,” Gonzales explained. “So the growers have stopped doing that many big trees so, now that everybody’s asking for them, they’re going to have to do reproduction for maybe next year.”
McShane’s Nursery gets its trees from Mossyrock, Washington. While that state has also been in a drought, it hasn’t been as dire as California. Gonzales says he’s heard of other local farms feeling the effect of a four-year water shortage.
“The ones that we’ve heard in California is that the trees are a little smaller, they’re not as thick and all that because they’re not able to give them as much water and there wasn’t that much rain,” Gonzales said.
Speaking of water, it’s important to care for the tree once it’s set up and decorated. The recommendation is one gallon of water every two days.
According to the National Fire Protection Association, one in every three Christmas tree fires is caused by electrical problems. Roughly one in every six is because of a heat source (fireplace) is too close to the tree.
