February at Santa Fir

All the Christmas trees over 8ft tall are stripped of their branches and made into bird sticks. These are used when the trees are in their growing phase in the spring and their tops are very delicate and prone to be broken by birds trying to perch on them. The bird sticks offer a taller point for the birds to land on and hopefully they will then leave the trees alone. 

The smaller trees are shredded to make compost and re-used. We are very happy to shred customers Christmas trees if they are left in the retail after the Christmas festivities. We feel it is very important to recycle wherever possible. 

 

This is the time our boys are out "handling" the Christmas trees, every tree has its bottom branches cut off. This happens when the trees have been in the plantation for 4 to 5 years, it creates a trunk ready for the many varied Christmas tree stands available. It also creates airflow under the trees to make it difficult for aphids and mites to attack the trees. 

 

The trees in this plantation were "handled" last year and the trunks have already started to repair themselves. 

 

Next month we will be starting to prepare the land ready for planting new trees.