A Highland Holiday Tradition
Perched in the highlands of Appalachian communities, a rare breed of farmer faces challenges that ultimately bring forth cheer. Christmas tree farms located in a small pocket of Western North Carolina provide nearly twenty-five percent of the Christmas trees cut and displayed in the United States each holiday season.
This iconic holiday horticultural enterprise provides Appalachian highland communities with a boost of winter tourism, local employment, and a unique cultural and visual identity. Drawing customers from states away, these choose-and-cut farms offer visitors a unique opportunity to live out a Hallmark moment.
The Experience
The drive up to a local favorite farm is a scenic one. Travelers wind up mountain roads, observing the thicker accumulation of snow dusting the countryside as the elevation increases. With a minimum elevation of 3,000 feet required to grow these iconic centerpieces, farms are limited to more remote locations.
Upon arrival, guests are greeted at the basecamp, offered hot chocolate, and shown a map of the farm. After they’ve gained their bearings, they’re handed a tag, much like a hunting tag for deer season. These hopeful hunters are sent off to hike the farm and find their perfect tree.
The chosen tree is tagged, and a team of farmhands lops and loads it faster than the North Pole elves can blink! Customers make their way back to basecamp, where they pay for their tree based on the size they chose. Everyone heads back down the mountain, hopefully to a crockpot of soup at home and an evening of Christmas tree decoration. The parade of tree-topped vehicles headed down the mountain is a classic and heartwarming scene.
Everyone is familiar with the twelve days of Christmas, but what about the nine years of Christmas?
Native Fraser Firs are a popular species choice for these farms, due to their hardiness and beauty. However, it takes years of planning and growth before these fragrant trees reach your living room.
The average marketable size of a Christmas tree is seven feet tall. It takes about nine years for a tree to reach peak harvest size, with an average growth rate of 9.5 inches per year. For those of us who enjoy a more ostentatious occasion, those ten-foot trees take well over a decade! To put it in perspective, the average Christmas tree has seen two or three presidential administrations.
Tree Tragedies
Tree farms in Appalachia are facing increased pressure. With some of the highest recorded temperatures at their elevation in recent years, many have lost unprecedented numbers of saplings to heat. Pests such as the Balsam Woolly Adelgid and Spruce Spider Mites are enjoying a hearty breeding season, unchallenged by the stronger cold snaps that keep them dormant for more extended periods.
Other challenges include land loss; leased land is common in these growing practices, and many owners chose to sell their land during the real estate and vacation home development boom of the early 2020s. Farmers who leased these lands lost access, and the acres were developed, never to be used for agriculture again.
Hurricane Helene also had a major effect on higher elevations, due to wind damage and mudslides. One Avery County, North Carolina, farm alone lost 60,000 trees to these damages. Unlike seasonal crop growers, who can recover in a year or two, this represents nine to fifteen years of recovery time for their harvest.
It is important to continue supporting our local growers as they face these challenges in order to preserve the holiday traditions that we love.
A tamer, but equally impactful tree shopping experience.
If a hike up a mountain is not your cup of tea (or cocoa), your family can still shop to support local tree farms! Many nurseries and produce stands in nearby towns offer locally cut trees. Ask your local shop manager whether they have pre-cut, farm-fresh trees for purchase!
Find your perfect Christmas Tree at a Choose and Cut Farm, no matter where you are in the Appalachian Highlands Region.
