absolutely not..

they were planted for a reason.. and i have no qualms about harvesting such .. for profit ...

in fact.. i kill a couple dozen trees a year.. jsut for the shear joy of it .... mostly because they are somewhat invasive trees.. that some idiot bird planted.. where i dont want one.. whats the difference...

ken

Christmas trees from a farm were grown for that reason ... just like the vegetables I bought at the grocery store.

It bothers me a little, but not enough to get militant. Being in horticulture a good part of my life, I figure there are more wasteful and destructive products than Christmas trees and other 'green' products. They aren't totally without damage to resources and environment, however. Nothing is.

That being said, we made and sold greenery for many years at Christmas time. However, we have friends with tree farms, and we usually were an outlet for healthy trees but 'imperfect' ones i.e. lopsided, missing a branch etc.

We windrowed and composted our wastes, as do most people who purchase greenery, even if it ends up being carted off by municipal waste managements.

They do use water, they get chemicals applied to them, and they do use petrol for transportation to market. They are temporary carbon sinks and air cleaners as they grow as an up side. I do get disgusted at the stores filled with plastic Christmas gimcracks, however. That is waste, especially the cheap stuff made to be used one year and then trashed. I have one small, artificial tree I resurrect each year and some ornaments made of natural materials. The massive amounts of pumpkins grown each year and trashed also disturbs me. It's food and I think of all the hungry people out there. sigh.

well.. i pride myself on the useless collection of obscure words.. even trying to work them in here.. but i never heard of gimcrack ... whose definition lead me to gewgaw ... lol .. though i thought it was geegaw ...

now.. how do you pronounce it .. as in Jim .. or gim.. hard or soft???? .. J or G???

so many words.. so little time...

crimminey.. lol

ken

PS:.. the one thing i hate more than maple... is pumpkin pie ... pumpkin is not a food, in my world ... lol .. well.. the seeds are good.. but thats more a roughage thing.. than nutrition ...

Here is a link that might be useful: link

If the harvesting of Christmas trees is done carefully, they can be coppiced, so you're not really killing the tree.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tree farm that coppices christmas trees

Did anyone see Shark Tank the other night? The contestant had the idea to deliver live trees to homeowners, and pick them up after the holidays, essentially renting the trees.
The idea is to re-use the trees year after year. Mark Cuban agreed to provide the $$$.

Huh. That rental idea is interesting.

Christmas trees do not bother me any more than eating corn does.

When farmers have us build em levees or do stupid things that ruin their land it is annoying just as if any christmas tree farmer would be if he clear cut a forest.

As it is I do not think many if any do.

Trees Atlanta is running that very program this year. Renting out potted eastern redcedars that they will plant afterwards in a restoration project or something similar.

Down south it shouldn't bother a tree to be brought inside for a couple of weeks in December. Isn't it rather rough on a potted tree to do so up north with the greater temperature differentials?

On another note : some rather interesting cultivars (Carolina Sapphire) have been developed for the Christmas tree industry.

***********"When farmers have us build em levees or do stupid things that ruin their land it is annoying just as if any christmas tree farmer would be if he clear cut a forest. As it is I do not think many if any do."***********

Depending on your definition of forest, yes the tree farmer does clear cut his Christmas tree forest.

It sure smells good with the pine scent in the air from all of the cut trees.

I strung up lights on the Alaska Cypress in the front yard this year as an alternative, and my 2-yr old doesn't seem to mind. Toying with the idea of cutting down a Norway maple each year and sticking that in the tree holder to still give us that real tree experience inside.

I, too, string lights or decorate a conifer or two with red balls - outside! My Abies pinsapo 'Glauca' is the usual victim.

Here's a new one for me at least. Stone Pine, Pinus pinea for use as a tabletop Christmas tree.
I don't know this plant, will it even grow in USDA zone 7?
{{gwi:493544}}

I saw the Shark Tank episode and thought it was a good idea if they do it right.

I still don't get the concept of cutting down a tree and hauling it in your house. I've always had a life like tree and it does the job of "showing off".

It mostly bothers me because folks want a live tree in their living room for a month but can't bother to plant a live tree in their damn yard.

If you actually read the history of the christmas tree its really not that impressive, lol. I just put it up becuase I like the lights!

As an arborist with my main job being to protect tree you would probably guess that I would be the biggest of tree huggers. That is not true though. In the case of christmas trees they were never meant to be valuable trees. They were planted every year to be cut down and put in homes across america. Just the concept that your neighbor is planting trees is a good thing. He needs to keep planting trees to keep up with any demand for christmas trees so this is a good thing.

Where the line gets drawn is when you start effecting the ecosystem like cutting rainforests down. This kills off many beneficial plants and animals that might serve a really good purpose. Cutting down christmas trees or a rainforest?

Here is a link that might be useful: Arbor Doctor website

Yes, I am familiar with Swiss Stone Pine (Pinus Cembra). It's a beautiful tree and we planted one in front of our home about three years ago. They're perfect for landscaping where one does not want a gigantic pine, and they're very slow growing and why they're hard to get in the trade and usually pretty expensive. Zobes three to seven. It's a great tree for the north.

This isn't Swiss stone pine. It is A Mediterranean species only hardy to zone 8 - and doesn't like zone 8 where too hot/humid in summer (though there is a nice one in GA I have seen).

It doesn't bother me at all that my neighbor cuts his Christmas trees down to sell to people in our area. It helps our local economy, the trees help the environment while they are here, and more trees are immediately replanted the following March.

It's amazing to me how they grow.

He doesn't water them when he plants them. He digs the hole, practically tosses the seedling in the ground, covers it up, stomps the ground down with his foot, walks away from them, and that's it. The trees are never watered at any time while in his care, not even through last summer's drought.

A well-known, on television everyday, celebrity ordered hundreds of his trees several years ago because she wanted them planted on her property. We're so out in the middle of nowhere, and the neighbor doesn't advertise so I have no idea how her "people" found him...

Funny, but I happened to be at a holiday party last night where the hosts took an interesting approach to having a live tree.

In the middle of the room was an approximately 7' tall B&B Norway Spruce... 2' root ball sitting on the top of a 5 gal metal bucket. Evidently, they've been doing this for a few years now with similar size B&B conifers, including another spruce and an eastern white pine. After the holidays, they throw it in the ground in a big church lot and leave it to nature to do the rest. 100% success rate so far, from what I hear.

Yes and no.

Trees are a renewable resource.
But, like anything else, xmas trees can and will surpass carrying capacify for humans. Imaginea billion people putting up trees...

There are much more fun traditions for the solstice, maybe they will catch on. See hogmanay, for example, but it is no more sustainavle on a human scale than xmas.

Does it bother you that people kill trees for Christmas?

Yes.

No. I am out there taking them off the curb after they get put out there. I have a chipper/shredder. They don't go to waste. I use the boughs for mulch as well as the wood. I have a small car so I can't get as much as I would like to, but I can fit 2 or 3 trees in my hatchback at a time if the trees arten't too big.

We decorate a bristlecone pine just outside the porch window now. Even put the Christmas presents under it too, on Christmas morning. When we still had kids home though, we cut a var or black spruce. If it was a spruce, we just took the top to be a Christmas tree and limbed up the trunk and left it by the side of our woods road till spring. When the saw mill opened again, we took it to be made into boards or 2 by 4's. We have an old house and it always needs something brought up to modern codes, or repairs or something. After Christmas, we cut off the branches for the garden and cut up the trunk for the stove. We have wood heat. The old Christmas tree kept the house warm for the seedlings growing in the porch for 'later'.

It bothers me, just undecorated mine. seeing it close up, all the growth, the structure, I just felt bad feeling it dead beneath my hands compared to how alive, bendy and green if felt when I decorated it. It is a feeling, I don’t have a logical argument :), just felt decadent and wasteful to have had a tree that was cut down that could have grown so much. I am presently a meat eater so I am laughing at my sentimentality, applying this sentimentally to the meat I eat (and stopping) would be more beneficial to the planet 🙄.