CBJ: A good year for the green?

Christmas tree farmer Eddie Blevins says the Fraser firs he sells are the Cadillac of trees.

Though, he admits, he’s had his fair share of cramming them into Volkswagens for enthusiastic buyers, some of whom will drive all the way to Florida with the tree trunk crammed between the driver and passenger seats.

“They go up there, they bring all the grandkids and their cameras,” he said of the folks who come tree-shopping at Eddie and Anne’s Christmas Tree Farm, which he has run for 12 years along U.S. 58 on the eastern edge of Washington County.

“They love it when it’s snowing, and they snowball each other and everything,” he said. “Sometimes, they stay three or four hours.”

In the rest of America, Christmas might still be several weeks away. But here in Christmas tree country, the holiday season has been long under way.

With recent sub-freezing temperatures and snow, the evergreens are ready to harvest, and growers are going full-speed to get them cut and baled in time to ship out before Thanksgiving, which traditionally kicks off the holiday decorating season.

Big business

John Rosser, president of the Mount Rogers Area Christmas Tree Growers Association, said the region’s 150 growers ship out $30 million worth of trees each year, to destinations that span the East Coast and beyond.

“I would say most of them are Virginia, Maryland and headed north. Some go to Tennessee; some go to North Carolina and Florida,” Rosser said. “Florida’s actually a pretty big market.”

The first snow — usually in mid-October up in the mountains — is significant for the Christmas tree industry, Rosser said, because the trees need three consecutive nights of sub-freezing weather to “harden off,” or set their needles and go dormant for the winter.

Recent temperatures in the 20s and 2 or more inches of snow in the high elevations was just what the trees needed, he said.

Once cut, the trees can then be kept until they go to market — and, with a fresh half-inch cut to the bottom of the trunk in December, will be ready to soak up water from a bucket or tree stand.

“Fraser fir will have excellent needle retention at the end of February, but you and I are just trying to get it to Epiphany,” he said.

Rosser said this region is uniquely suited to growing the trees because they grow only at high elevations, above 3,500 feet.

Christmas trees have been grown here since the 1950s, Rosser said, and a breed of Fraser fir that’s often used here originated in the area.

He said the variety, branded by the association as the Mount Rogers Fraser fir, is favored for its fragrance, its relatively strong branches and its excellent needle retention.

Economies of scale

With just 70,000 trees on about 100 acres, Blevins is considered a small grower, and this year most of his trees are destined for parts of Virginia.

“I have some trees going to parts of Northern Virginia: Fairfax, Arlington, Manassas, Great Falls,” he said. “I also furnish trees for Abingdon.”

He also makes Christmas wreaths and is hoping to sell between 600 and 700 this year, in addition to maybe 5,000 trees.

So far, he said, business is fair in this recession — not good, but fair.

He said tree prices are down 15 percent, largely because of the economy — and it’s likely that tree retailers are afraid to overstock their lots this year. Meanwhile, the cost of raising trees has gone up.

But, Blevins said, some pundits predict recession-weary consumers will splurge at Christmastime after a year of family budget cutbacks, and there’s still a hope that more trees will sell than some retailers predict.

“It could turn around yet,” he said, as his hired crews baled hundreds of recently cut trees for shipping.

The town of Abingdon, for one, is going all-out this year, ordering a dozen 8-foot-tall trees in addition to the typical larger tree.

Myra Cook, the town’s tourism director, said they’re for a tree-decorating contest at the town’s market pavilion, which she hopes will encourage others to help decorate downtown for the season.

“I would like to see families get back out like they used to years ago, when they would go and look at Christmas decorations and the lights in the towns,” she said, “and I think this will help start that tradition.”

Giving back

Blevins said more people are buying real Christmas trees these days, instead of artificial trees. He implies — but doesn’t say — that they’re choosing to support American farmers instead of overseas manufacturers.

He believes part of that shift is the Trees for Troops program, which is run by a private foundation and ships some 16,000 trees each year to U.S. soldiers and their families.

In a way, he said, it helped give Christmas trees a patriotic image.

Amy Mills, spokeswoman for the program, said despite the economy, the program has seen no decline in donations.

“I think it’s because a lot of our tree growers are veterans themselves and they just really enjoy being able to provide that piece of Christmas,” she said.

Blevins said participating in the program has had a real impact: Last year, a call from a man in St. Petersburg, Fla., made his Christmas.

“He’d just pulled in, and Federal Express was unloading him a real tree at his home, and he said it was the first real tree he’d ever had,” Blevins said of the man, who’d lost his limbs while serving in Iraq. “The best thing you ever do in your life is what you give away.”

Meanwhile, he said, he’s doing his part to help the economy in Southwest Virginia, providing seasonal jobs for some of his out-of-work neighbors and keeping his confidence in America’s work ethic to see its economy through.

It’s wisdom from a man whose business is decidedly long-term, whose this-year imperfect trees always have a chance of being sold next year, with a little trimming and a little growth.

And even the ones that never shape up can still be beautiful at Christmas.

“If it’s not going to make a good tree,” he said, “I just cut it up for wreaths.”