Newsweek

You have discriminating tastes.  You tote a Louis Vuitton purse (with a Prada wallet inside) and you dress top to bottom in Versace.  Clearly, you’re not the kind to put just any old Christmas tree in you living room.  Thankfully, for you there is Oregon’s Noble Vintage, which is being marketed this season by a group of Oregon tree growers as a “designer” tree – with a ritzy tag and a price to match.  (The trees, which are pampered from their planting, sell for $25 to $80 more than their generic brethren.)

It sounds gimmicky – and it kind of is – but its working.  While the rest of the national evergreen industry is hurting as people turn to artificial varieties, Oregon’s Noble Vintage sales have nearly doubled since they debuted last year, largely through word of mouth.  The consortium’s earning props from the National Christmas Tree Association: “Any kind of marketing effort that introduces new trees to new markets is a good thing,” says Rick Dungey, a NCTA spokesman.  The trees, which are culled from the top 10 percent of the crop, are valued for their symmetrical shape, vibrant color, long-lasting needles and, of course, the “designer” moniker.  They’re especially popular in homes on a holiday house tour because, much like a designer handbag, the Oregon’s Noble Vintage (which looks like a more perfect version of your off-brand tree) can be recognized by those you know.  And for those who don’t, “some customers leave the tag on,” says Joe Sharp, chairman of the Oregon’s Noble Vintage consortium.

The Wall Street Journal

The Fight Before Christmas: Real Trees vs. Fakes

Farmers Tout Green Appeal To Persuade Consumers To Reject Faux Firs This Year
By Sara Schaefer Munoz

For years, consumers tired of schlepping to tree farms and vacuuming up pine needles have turned to artificial Christmas trees.  Now, growers and suppliers of real Christmas trees are battling back, and the fight is getting nasty.

The Web site of the National Christmas Tree Association refers to some fake trees as “big green toilet bowl brushes.”  The group has also started distributing an online came called “Attack of the Mutant Artificial Trees,” where kids can vaporize garishly colored conifers by pelting them with virtual snowballs.

Name-calling aside, the real-tree industry’s main tactic is to tap into consumers concern for the environment.  Environmental experts generally agree that real trees are the more earth-friendly choice since wood is a renewable resource, and trees provide oxygen and help reduce carbon dioxide – a contributor to global warming.  Artificial trees are usually made with petroleum. 

“Buy a Real Tree So We Can Keep Making More Oxygen for You,” proclaim new signs posted this year around Sunrise Tree Farm, in Kings Valley, Ore.  Tags attached for the fist time to trees this year at Yule Tree Farms in Aurora, Ore., tell customers the business is dedicated to “sustainable agriculture practices.”  One new ad for Aldrich Tree Farm in Belmond, Iowa, says: “Fake Trees Can Do More Harm than City Fellers on a Farm.”

The moves by the real-tree industry follow years of growing sales of artificial trees.  Advances in artificial-tree design have made them more appealing to many consumers: Some fake trees are more realistic-looking while others come in funky colors and have wacky features.  One latest offering from the Web site christmastreeforme.com, for example, has a transparent plastic trunk filled with bubbles.  Another, the black Christmas tree, was one of the sites’ most popular products this year, says owner Bill Quinn, and was sold out by early December.

Many consumers also see faux trees – which last for years, don’t need to be watered and can come dressed with lights – as more convenient.  While more people still opt for real over artificial, other retailers are selling trees people can’t plant when Christmas is over.  Garth Herring, president of www.noblefir.com, started offering potted trees for the first time this year, as did Yule Tree Farms, which began selling the three-foot to four-foot potted trees on its Internet retail site, oregonsnoblevintage.com, for $80, including delivery.

Sunset Magazine

Clackamas County, Oregon
Land of the perfect tree

Joe Sharp bends down to admire a small, tidy conifer with bright green boughs.

“Look at that bud density,” he tells me.  “Phenominal.”

Sharp is praising a Serbian spruce, native to Europe but thriving here in Clackamas County, Oregon, Christmas tree capital of the world.

This month you may buy your Christmas tree from a big-box store with the scary forklifts.  Or from a fancy nursery that smells of cloves and money.  Or the corner lot run by Boy Scouts.  No matte, your tree probably comes from Clackamas County or nearby.  Last year, Oregon harvested 7.3 million Christmas trees, making it the number one Christmas tree state in the nation.  And while other Willamette Valley counties – Benton, Marion, Polk – produce lots of trees, Clackamas is Christmas tree king.

As for Sharp, he’s an owner of Yule Tree Farms.  It’s not been the biggest Christmas tree grower in the nation – that honor goes to Holiday Tree Farms, in nearby Corvallis – but it is among the top five.  And Sharp is a soft-spoken but eloquent defender of the genuine Christmas tree, which in 2006 the tree rather surprisingly requires.

For the path from cone to 7-foot-tall holiday centerpiece is an arduous one, as Sharp explains when we tour some of Yule Tree’s 3,800 acres of trees.  “Wheat’s a commodity you harvest every year,” Sharp says, detailing just one of the differences between Christmas tree farming “A Douglas fir takes up to six.”  Seeds are harvested from cones, transplanted to seedling nurseries, transplanted back as two-year-old trees, and trimmed and pruned to conical perfection.  At age 5 or 6, they’re ready for the November/December harvest: cut, pressed in large pallets, the pallets hoisted into the air by helicopters – “so the Trees aren’t dragged in the mud,” Sharp says – and ferried to Yule Tree’s distribution center, where they’re placed on trucks to be shipped around the country.

Over the years, Sharp has acquired an in-depth knowledge of America’s tree performance and quirks.  The Douglas fir remains the classic tree, but California increasingly goes for the noble.  The East Coast, which likes Douglas but also balsam and Fraser firs, buys trees earlier – Thanksgiving weekend – than does the West, which waits until December.

Looming on the horizon is the cheerless fact that only 30 percent of Americans even purchase real Christmas trees.  Another 45 percent opt for artificial specimens, which, Sharp says worriedly, are imported from China and are getting better all the time.  A final 25 percent buy no tree at all. 

Sharp and the tree industry are fighting back.  They’re experimenting with varieties like the Serbian spruce.  Yule Tree Farms has used a shaking machine t loose dead needles from trees before they’re shipped.  (“The number one customer complaint; nobody wants needles on their carpet.”) And Sharp has launched Oregon’s Noble Vintage, his highest hope, which offers specially coddled noble firs, cut or live, shipped to your door.

Because after all, Sharp says as we visit one last grove of trees, your artificial tree lacks fragrance.  “And they look the same year after year.”  He’s working hard to convince me of the merits of the real Christmas tree, but I don’t have to be convinced.  It helps that the rows of firs are so beautiful and that Mt. Hood hangs like an ornament behind them. 

In my mind, Christmas is supposed to involve a little work done for a joyous purpose.  The wrapping, the basting, the insane lines at the mall – they’re all part of the picture.  It’s the same with a Christmas tree.  An artificial version is too easy.  You want a little struggle: the stuffing of the tree into the car, the drive home with your head poked by the needles.  You shove the tree into its rickety metal stand, string the lights, and set the cheesy, 10-year-old paper angel on the tallest green bough.  Then you stand back, take a deep, satisfactory breath, and announce, “There.  That’s the best tree we’ve ever had.”  INFO. Yule Tree Farms isn’t open to visitors, but for information on its trees, visit www.yuletreefarm.com; for more on Oregon’s Noble Vintage, visit www.oregonsnoblevintage.com.

MSN.COM The Perfect Christmas Tree

Whether you know it or not, Joe Sharp may have grown your last Christmas tree.

Sharp is the owner of Oregon’s Yule Tree Farms, one of the five largest tree farms in the country. Every holiday season, his 3,800-acre farm supplies corner lots, nurseries, hardware stores and supermarkets across the U.S. and Canada with fresh-cut evergreen bounty.

MSN Lifestyle asked Sharp for tips on finding the perfect Christmas tree, making it last in your home and cleaning it all up after the holidays.

MSN Lifestyle: What makes a good Christmas tree?

Joe Sharp: First, you want it to be fresh. It’s got to be recently harvested. Take a look at the butt of the tree, where it’s been cut. The darker the wood, the older the cut. With most firs especially, the wood is pretty light when it’s first cut. That’s what you want to see. If the tree isn’t fresh, it’s going to be dehydrated, and it won’t take up water as well from your stand. That’s going to shorten its shelf life.
Then, you want to make sure it’s been shaken. A good farm will shake its trees before selling, to get rid of debris and needles. You want that stuff to stay outside, on the farm, not come into your house.    

MSN: Any other criteria we should keep in mind when shopping for a tree?

Sharp: Hold the needles in your hand. Lightly brush them against your palm. If a whole lot of needles fall off, the tree is too dry. Don’t buy it. One or two needles isn’t a problem, but more than that is a warning sign.
Then of course you want to see that the tree is symmetrical. Some people like them fuller, some like them more open, with space between the branches. It’s all personal taste.

MSN: Is there a “perfect” Christmas tree?

Sharp: The truly perfect tree is more rare than not, but yes. Out of about 1,700 trees per acre, on a farm, there are about 10 to 15 that are “perfect.” That means no holes in the branches, and a distinct cylindrical shape. You know, just exactly what you think of as “Christmas tree-shaped,” narrowing the right amount at the top. The color matters, too: the brightness of the green.
People know a perfect tree when they see it. For that kind of perfect, premium fresh tree, you could pay up to $150 to $200. But that's the top of the line. Most are less.

MSN: Have our tastes in trees changed over the years?

Sharp: I’d say our tastes have changed quite a bit. When trees were all cut in the wild, the taste was for a more open, natural tree. Now that most are plantation-grown, with hand-sheared tips and all, people want a fuller tree with dense branches.

MSN: Do different parts of the country choose different types of trees?

Sharp: Yes. In the West they prefer noble firs, and in the East, Fraser firs are more popular. In the South, they like the Douglas firs. Grand firs are popular in the mountain states. In the Northeast, there are three: Fraser fir, Douglas fir and balsam fir.


MSN: What’s the best way to ensure your tree lasts as long as possible?

Sharp: The most important thing to do is to cut a half inch off the butt of the tree and put it in water as soon as possible. Lots of retailers will do the cutting for you now. Another thing is, when you bring the tree home, don’t bring it in the house right away. Put it in the garage or a sheltered space, in a 5-gallon bucket of water (remembering to cut a half inch off the butt). You can even leave it bound up, just let it acclimate itself there. I’d leave it for a day or so.


MSN: Do you have any tips for post-season cleanup?

Sharp: The best one is the garbage bags that you put down underneath your tree skirt. When it’s time to get rid of the tree, you pull the bag up around the tree and stand, and pick it all up together to carry it outside. That brings all the needles out of the house with the tree.
Joe Sharp’s Christmas Tree “Best Of” List

Best seller: In volume, Douglas fir. In value, noble fir.

Best for big spaces: The noble fir. "It’s a big, full tree."

Best for small spaces: A potted living tree. "Something like the trees we sell at Oregon's Noble Vintage. They’re fragrant, and they’re only about 36 inches to 48 inches tall. After Christmas, you can donate it to a park, plant it in the backyard, put it in a median -- whatever you want."

Personal favorite: Noble fir for the look and feel, grand fir for the fragrance. "This year I’ll have a noble. Come to think of it, maybe I’ll have a grand, too."

For more about Joe Sharp's fresh-cut wholesale Christmas trees, visit www.yuletreefarm.com. For more information on Oregon's Noble Vintage -- which delivers both cut and living trees to residential addresses -- visit www.oregonsnoblevintage.com.