Sustainably Grown Christmas Trees?
Dec.03, 2007 in
Shopping
What’s up with this:
Does it feel better to be a tree that’s sustainably grown when you’re sitting rootless outside a Co-op?
What constitutes sustainable when it comes to Christmas trees? Organic fertilizer? Hand-cutting?
December 3rd, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Im no mathmatician but if you plant more than you harvest….I think your in the sustainable ballpark.
December 3rd, 2007 at 1:41 pm
Wouldn’t all tree farms be ‘sustainably grown’? I sincerely doubt any treelot obtains their trees from one-time cuts.
Seeing the price tags makes that $15 tree outside of the Medford WI quiki-mart gas station look even more attractive…and the $20 my sister paid to have a tree delivered to her home in Merrill look damned sweet.
Ah, pining for the Motherland. (Pun intended, albeit accidently discovered.)
December 3rd, 2007 at 2:46 pm
To my liberal green police coworkers re: this photo — How is you buying a live Xmas tree worse than me throwing away paper? Come January 1, you’re just going to throw it away, right? Another proof point in my assertion that trees are crops.
December 3rd, 2007 at 7:49 pm
I shop at the seward coop a lot, but this just kind of makes me go, huh?
The only thing I can think of is that they’re sprayed with environmentally friendly green paint or that the water they use is, umm, from rain. You know, sustainable.
December 3rd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Hey, I just went there tonight and I was thinking WTF? I thought Christmas trees were pretty much always sustainably grown??
December 4th, 2007 at 3:28 am
I bought a bonsai christmas tree this year. It’s 18 inches tall and is growing in a pot. When the Christmas period is over I’m going to bring it outside where it can live for the rest of the year. I’ll either plant it back in the soil or keep it in its pot until next year. That’s pretty sustainable!
Of course that only works when you’re single and don’t have any kids. It would be harder to move a larger, living tree around although I suppose it is possible.
December 6th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
I had the same initial response. Basically, it means no pesticides, chemical fertilizers, or paint. It also means allowing other plants to grow around the trees, instead of mowing around them constantly.
I got one of the pictured trees this year. Despite it’s price, I’m pretty happy with it. It’s the best looking Christmas tree I’ve ever had.
The trees sold at Seward Coop are from a family farm just on the other side of the Iowa border. An article they wrote about their sustainable trees is here [pdf].
Another article on sustainable Christmas tree can be found here. It’s not very keen on artificial trees.