Tag Archives: christmas

Meet J and J Treeland.

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If you think diversity on a Christmas tree farm is all about the number of evergreen options sitting in the field for customers in December, think again. J and J Treeland, a family-run operation in Prospect, Virginia, spreads it efforts over enterprises in retail, wholesale, wreath-making, greenery sales, and roping, creating a truly diverse income stream that has evolved to meet changing trends and new demands.

The “J and J” behind the name are John Young and his forester friend Jim Bowen, who started the farm in 1979 and ran it as business partners for twenty years until Jim took a new job with the Department of Forestry and John transitioned to full ownership. “He had the knowledge, I had the land, so we decided we’d pool our resources, and we started out nice and small,” recalls John. “And then greed got the best of us,” he laughs, “So instead of planting a thousand trees, well hell, if that’s good, how about planting three thousand trees, then why not try five thousand…so soon, we had trees in a lot of spots. We were shipping, and mainly we had white pines and Norway spruces and we used to buy Frasier firs out of the mountains, and then I started growing firs and Turkish firs.” Though the farm has downsized from its peak days growing thousands of trees and shipping in wholesale orders to supply retail markets, there was a time when John had trees growing on sites ranging from Sussex to Grundy. “That’s a long stretch,” he adds.

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Perhaps the most intriguing element of the farm is its connection to Virginia’s best-loved historical district. “We make all the wreaths for Colonial Williamsburg. Every wreath that you see hanging on those doors in the old part of town is made right here,” John says. Anyone who has visited Duke of Gloucester street in December knows that supplying this order is no small feat. For jobs like this, good help is a necessity. John owns a machine that speeds up the process of attaching greenery to each wreath base, but there is plenty of work to be done by hand, and for that, he employs holiday farm crews. Since many people have difficulty scheduling seasonal work around their year-long jobs, finding labor to go to the field, cut and sort greenery, and assemble wreaths can be challenging. “As long as you can work or you’re willing to work, I’ll give you a job,” John laughs.

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Top: Farm staff load and unload clippings at the wreath-making station.

Farm employees undergo some training to prepare for the holiday wreath rush, according to Sarah Kirkman, who runs certain retail and wholesale activities and happens to be John’s granddaughter. “October is when we start the wreaths, and the first three weeks of October are just practice—we have people come in, we show them how to clip, how to make wreaths, all that fun stuff. Our first order goes out November third, so that last week of October is making wreaths for real, and then November is mainly all just wreaths and roping,” she says. With wreaths comes a demand for roping, too. In past years, the family had to bring in roping from Southwest Virginia to meet their orders—they simply could not keep up with demand while making everything by hand. With the addition of a new machine, they can now crank out a great deal of roping to accompany the wreaths. The machine rotates the roping wire, adding material as it goes. “It’s fun. It’s fast. I saw a video, and I was like ‘Hey Papa, we need to buy this!’” Sarah laughs.

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Top: Sarah demonstrates the roping machine.

For the Colonial Williamsburg order, J and J Treeland employees assemble wreaths up to 42” in size. Each wreath gets dipped into a solution which prevents drying out, and the wreaths are stored under a special shade structure which keeps them cool prior to shipping. “At the end of the day, usually about forty minutes before we are done, we go and tie all the wreaths up and get them in there and get them covered in straw and water to keep the temperature down,” Sarah says. The wreaths are decorated by volunteers when they arrive in Colonial Williamsburg. The farm has also sold their wreaths and roping for years at the nearby Williamsburg Farmers Market.

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Aside from growing, cutting up, assembling, and shipping greenery, the farm is still in the Christmas tree supply business—John fills orders with a combination of farm-grown and shipped-in trees, especially Frasier firs brought in from the southwestern counties. Many of his customers are small stores or local businesses with pre-cut tree lots. “A lot of the big operators aren’t interested in sending twenty-five or fifty trees to somebody—they deal with big accounts. So I make wreaths and roping for a lot of places and a lot of them are smaller places, and they just need fifty trees,” John says.

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John surveys a load of trees.

Prospect is located in Prince Edward County, just outside of Farmville, and white pines are traditionally some of the easiest Christmas trees to grow in that region. “You can sell a few still. I have a market here if they’re growing in the field—we still sell right many white pines. White pines and Norway spruce we sell a lot of,” John says. Nonetheless, white pine popularity has waned over the years, and John has added about ten other trees to meet new preferences. “We do grow grand fir, concolor fir, Canaan fir, Turkish fur, and we have some Korean fir planted. We have Serbian spruce….we have some blues also,” he notes. “So there’s a lot of trees growing here, and of course most of them are western trees—your Canaan fir comes out of the Canaan Valley in West Virginia and of course Frasier firs are from Carolina, but your grand fir and your concolor fir come out of the western part of the United States. Turkish fir of course, that’s pretty self-explanatory. The Norways and the whites are eastern types of trees from this area.” The Canaan firs are a nice alternative to Frasiers, which do not grow well in Southside Virginia. “You can’t hardly tell the difference,” John says.

Much like wreath-making, tree management requires a high labor commitment, and chores intensify during critical management windows. “In March, we start planting trees. We’re planting about four to five thousand, and we are mostly just doing it on the weekends, some during the week,” Sarah says. “So then in July and August we start topping, and then shape the trees, and in the fall we really mostly mainly just focus on the fields, bushogging and things like that, so we can get it nice and clean for retail since people are walking all through the fields all around Christmastime,” she adds.

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As soon as Thanksgiving ends, on-farm, you-cut sales are in full swing. To help families enjoy their tree-picking day on the farm, J and J Treeland offers a suite of amenities. “During the season on the weekends, we have an adult-sized train that runs with three cars, we have the horse-drawn carriage, we have hay rides, we do food, we do cut-your-own, and we have people who can go and cut it down for you if you don’t want to cut it down yourself,” she says. Some customers even use the experience to bring in a photographer for outdoor family Christmas portraits.

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Catch a glimpse of “Big Jim” on the weekends, when he greets farm visitors with carriage rides.

When it comes to the live tree versus artificial tree debate, John makes his case with economics—“A really good artificial tree goes for $500—you can buy a real tree for ten years for that,” he says. Sarah notes that it can take one hundred years for an artificial tree to decompose in a landfill, whereas a live tree can be composted.

J and J Treeland is one of just a handful of Christmas tree farms in Southside Virginia—most are concentrated elsewhere in the state, especially the largest wholesale operations. John Young clearly found his niche—several niches, actually—through relationship-building and business savvy, and Prince Edward County Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension Agent Katy Overy believes his efforts have paid off. “They obviously have a broad range. It just shows you that a small farm in a rural county can spread their love everywhere. And of course the Williamsburg arrangement is great,” she says. “And you don’t just walk out there and cut your tree, there are other things that you can do, like get your kids to ride the train. Adding a little bit extra something to intrigue people to come out there is a good thing,” she adds.

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Though she is currently the Virginia Cooperative Extension agent serving J and J Treeland and all the other agricultural operations in the county, she has a Christmas tree production backstory of her own, placing her in the unique position to understand firsthand what it takes to run a farm enterprise. “When my sister was born in 1983, my dad decided that he wanted to plant Christmas trees so that my sister and I would have a job to do, to work and make money while we were in middle school and high school, and it’s really what made me have the work ethic I have today,” she says. “Pretty much when I was old enough to walk I was out there helping whenever I could. In the summer when he was pruning, I would walk behind him, helping pick up the trimmings. Then during the summer when we weren’t trimming the trees, we were cutting grass almost every day because of the amount of trees. And when we finished cutting the grass, the other end was ready to cut again,” she adds. Her first Christmas trees were ready to sell when she reached fifth grade, and she and her sister never stopped selling trees until high school. “We never really had a name for our tree farm, we just sold trees to the local grocery store at a discount and we would give two or three different sizes of trees. That’s how we sold them. All we ever planted was white pines,” she says. “If Daddy was home, we would go out and he would bring the power saw out there, but if he wasn’t home, we did the hand saw—my sister was on one side, me on the other, and we drug them out of the fields for the customers.”

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Top, center, bottom: With the help of their father, Extension agent Katy Overby and her sister learned to plant. grow, and harvest Christmas trees on their farm when they were young.

The hours spent growing up on a Christmas tree farm prepared Katy well for her current role, where she consults with farmers and landowners on a daily basis. “It helped me—my dad wasn’t the mouthpiece, we were. He would make us communicate with the customers who came out and wanted Christmas trees, talk to them on the phone….there was no Facebook then or anything like that,” she says. “It helped me with my communication skills period, but as far as being an Extension agent, the way I communicate with producers had a lot to do with how I communicated when I was younger. It made me comfortable around just anybody—we had all walks of life come get Christmas trees from us.”

Through their experiences taking part in this unique industry, Katy, John, and Sarah all agree that there is something special about working with live trees. For John, childhood memories of summers spent working on his uncle’s beef and tobacco farm in Littleton, North Carolina nudged him to move in adulthood from New Jersey to Virginia in 1961 to start farming. Of course, he ultimately settled on Christmas trees and the rest is history. According to Sarah, “Cows, he said, are a pain in the butt. Trees don’t move.” For her, the most rewarding part of the job is being able to take some stress off her grandparents while helping with the details. Unlike her grandfather, though, she cannot recall a particular decision to enter into the tree business. “I was born into it!” she laughs.

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Additional Resources for Readers:

J and J Treeland Facebook Page

J and J Treeland on the Virginia Christmas Growers Association website

VDACS Virginia-Grown Christmas Tree Guide

An Introduction to Growing Christmas Trees in Virginia

Species for Christmas Tree Planting in Virginia

Meet Millfarm Christmas Trees and Berry Farm.

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Trees come naturally to Bill Apperson—he is, after all, a forester by trade. However, he readily asserts that Millfarm is a team effort, with his wife Mary serving as his integral other half. “I’m more the horticulturalist, she’s the salesperson,” he says, and when it comes to management, “We see almost everything alike.” Mary, in turn, jokes, “He’s the brains, and I’m the brawn.”

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For many years, their combined powers behind the scenes have enabled visitors to share in the Christmas tree farm’s high-quality offerings. Millfarm, located minutes from Williamsburg, is a gem for pick-your-own enthusiasts chasing after a fresh-air farm experience or seeking a place to build family holiday traditions. Visitors walk through the fields to choose their trees, and the Appersons cut them and bring them out for the ride home. In a typical year, the farm draws its largest crowds on the first two weekends after Thanksgiving, as many customers want their trees in place in time for the Grand Illumination in nearby Colonial Williamsburg.

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What sets the Appersons apart from many tree farms is their tree-tagging policy—or, more precisely, the locally-cherished tree-tagging tradition they have cultivated. Any time after Halloween, customers are welcome to visit the farm, choose a tree, and reserve it with a tag of their choosing. Over time, this practice has evolved into a full-blown annual ritual for many families who come early in the season to claim a tree and mark it with special materials from home. “We have some uniquely decorated trees in our fields,” Mary laughs. Some trees are reserved simply with tags, ribbons, strings, or even socks, while others hold more elaborate trappings like tinsel, glass ornaments, hand-written signs, and even police caution tape. Some families visit their chosen trees multiple times throughout the holiday season, and Mary counted two dozen photographers at the farm on one recent weekend. “Families come out here to get their pictures taken with their trees,” she says.

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Above: Families reserve the trees of their choosing with a variety of signs, decorations, and ornaments.

The Christmas tree farm, one of few in Southeastern Virginia, has offerings ranging from traditional White Pines, Cedars, and Norway Spruce to the unique Canaan fir, Blue Ice Cypress, and Carolina Sapphire. Cypress trees are also farm staples. “The Leyland Cypress is the most popular because it doesn’t shed. It’s a very clean tree,” Mary notes. Trees are priced by the foot. “We round it off,” Bill says. “One of our keys is affordability. We are building for repeat customers.”

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Mary Apperson

Using extra greenery, the family offers wreaths to their customers both at the farm and at a nearby market. “We use trees that won’t make a Christmas tree,” Mary says. Years ago, to enhance their wreaths, Bill and Mary began growing a deciduous holly called “Winterberry,” prized for its bright red fruit. “It’s very popular for winter decorating,” Mary says. After seeing how in-demand the branches were at markets in the region around the holidays, Bill established some larger Winterberry plantings. “I realized there was a really good market for them,” he says. Now, his family sells branches loaded with bright red berries at the Williamsburg market along with the farm’s greenery and wreaths.

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The farm grows Winterberry for wreathmaking and for the local market.

As for chores, there is plenty to keep the Appersons busy year-round. After Christmas, they plant nearly three thousand new trees next to the old cut stumps. “Of course, keeping grass cut is a ten-month-of-the-year job,” Mary says. There is also the matter of pests of both the spineless and the hooved variety. Evergreens on Millfarm and just about everywhere else can be afflicted with insects like bagworms, scale, and aphids. Bill and Mary have adopted organic pest management strategies to deal with these problems as the need arises. The deer, on the other hand, pose a far more visible threat. They rub bark from trunks, break branches, and browse on trees, leaving a wake of irreparable damage. This year’s deer problems were particularly painful. “We’ll lose a whole field of firs to the deer,” Mary says.

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She believes that loss of wildlife habitat due suburban growth could be creating some of the extra deer pressure. While there are many farms in the area surrounding Williamsburg, its suburbs remain attractive for future growth and development. While this development can certainly bring new challenges to farmers in its wake, Kate Robbins, who manages Agriculture and Natural Resources programming for the James City County Extension office, sees the growth as an opportunity for novel forms of agriculture to thrive. “James City County is, for sure, a borderline county where urban sprawl is outgrowing the agriculture. However, we are seeing a burst in small farms start-ups—those less than five acres. We have an excellent Farmer’s Market in Williamsburg, and James City County is working hard to offer help and incentives to the small farmer,” she says.

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Kate Robbins (center) visits with Bill and Mary at the farm. She brings Extension services and support to growers in James City County.

In the meantime, Kate visits with the Appersons and other existing farmers to offer her knowledge and support. “As the Virginia Cooperative Extension Agricultural and Natural Resources representative for James City County, my role is to be a local resource to the producers, providing fact-based information to help improve productivity while protecting the environment,” she says. “I might advise the producer or farmer about which variety of crop grows best in the county or offer training in the safe application of pesticides or educate on the benefits of crop rotation,” she says. Through her outreach, she helps growers including Bill and Mary when pest and disease cases require input from university specialists. “A producer’s crop may show evidence of disease, so I can help get samples to Virginia Tech to hopefully diagnose the problem and get the crop back up to full, healthy production,” she says.

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Through her visits with the Appersons, Kate has come to believe that their combination of experience, longevity, and commitment to sound environmental practices has enabled them to build long-term success. “The Appersons are excellent environmental stewards, staying abreast of best safety practices regarding fertilization, pesticides, soils and water,” she says. “They understand what will work with and compliment the native soils, and they have a clear understanding of the native environment. Additionally, they are educators—they practice what they preach, and their superior products clearly drive the point home,” she notes.

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Bill Apperson shows off a tillage raddish from the family’s garden. He grows them as a fall cover crop to improve the soil.

Bill himself is no stranger to collaborating with Extension and other agricultural agencies. He spent his career in the Virginia Department of Forestry, and even in retirement, he works with their staff to conduct special research projects. He also credits his career as a forester with kickstarting the Christmas tree endeavor over forty years ago. “People were asking how to grow Christmas trees and nobody knew, so I grew a few rows to try it,” he says. He was tasked with performing trials on behalf of the Department of Forestry to see if certain Christmas trees could, in fact, be grown successfully in Southeastern Virginia’s soils and climate. He says of his trial trees, “People wanted to buy them, which took me by surprise.” He later developed his own tree business and continued his forestry work, leading him to network with researchers and university faculty along the way. He built relationships with Extension specialists, including Allen Straw, small fruit and specialty crops expert, and credits them for providing crucial technical support for the farm’s crops.

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When Bill and Mary are not busy planting, shaping Christmas trees, controlling grass, or helping customers, they are hard at work on the small fruit side of their business. The farm property once housed an orchard, and after Bill grew trees for a number of years, he chose to put some of the land back into fruit production, albeit in the form of blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries. “We decided to diversify a bit—it seemed like the way to go,” he says.

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Above: The farm’s blueberries and blackberries prepare for the winter ahead.

He grows several varieties of strawberries on black plastic and is currently experimenting with some day-neutral varieties that can blossom continuously throughout the growing season. Around April, the strawberries begin to require intensive attention, including irrigation, weed control, disease checks, and protection from freezing temperatures. Bill and Mary’s son, William, and their daughter-in-law, Cherie, help them run the farm. During strawberry planting season, William and Cherie’s children Lottie and Will help their parents and grandparents operate the farm’s waterwheel planter.

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Bill and Mary grow you-pick strawberries at Millfarm.

The farm is also home to several acres of blackberries and blueberries. Fruit harvest is mostly a pick-your-own affair, but the family takes a portion of the fruit crop to the market, where local berries are wildly popular. To adapt to local conditions, Bill grows southern highbush and rabbiteye varieties for his blueberry plantings, and he has a mixed selection of thorned and thornless blackberry varieties. Next year, he hopes to have raspberries growing under his high tunnel, and he has about an acre of asparagus that he and Mary hope to sell at the market next year along with their other offerings.

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One subtle benefit that pick-your-own operations afford to visitors is exposure to farm life. Bill says that kids who have never been to a farm often become wide-eyed with disbelief when they are invited to freely run and play in the open spaces on Millfarm. Many visit for berries in the summer. “I tell them, ‘Eat anything you want.’ They come out of the fields with juice running down their faces,” Bill says. Mary says that the farm enables her to show children firsthand how farm products are made. “They think that trees come from Lowe’s,” she says. She has hosted several school groups at the farm to date, and she has numerous opportunities to informally interact with her individual customers during their treks around the farm. “That’s the great part about you-pick—you get to educate,” she says.

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Bill and Mary have decades of experience on their side, and Bill has made effective use of his background as a tree expert to guide his decisions. “I try to start off with the right soil. If you can match the right tree to the right soil, you’re a genius,” he jokes. “Modern agriculture is all science with a little luck,” he says.

He and Mary focus on the areas where they can exert the greatest influence over their own success and the satisfaction of their customers. “We pride ourselves on three things—quality product, good service, and it’s got to be affordable,” Bill says. With those kinds of values at its core, Millfarm keeps its visitors returning year after year. After all, for many, the tree-buying experience at Millfarm is not just a shopping experience—it is a family tradition.

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Additional Resource for Readers:

Millfarm Christmas Trees and Berry Farm

Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services: 2015 Virginia Grown Christmas Tree Guide

Virginia Christmas Tree Growers Association

An Introduction to Growing Christmas Trees in Virginia

Species for Christmas Tree Planting in Virginia

Virginia Department of Forestry

 

Meet Nuckols Christmas Tree Plantation.

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Richard Nuckols has memories tracing back to several decades ago when he, his father, and his two brothers spent summers shaping Scotch Pines with hand shears. “I like shaping trees, but I’ll tell you, that was drudgery right there,” he says. The tree farm has grown and changed since his father established it in 1966 on a properly in Cumberland County bordering Route 60. Richard took over the operation in 1994 after his dad passed away and, for one thing, he now uses a gas-powered yule trimmer to make tree shaping a more manageable summertime task.

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The farm used to be a wholesale operation when Richard was young, but choose-and-cut later became the better option for keeping the farm in business. The transition was a sensible one, according to David Smith, the Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension agent for Cumberland County who provides information and support to Richard and other farm producers in the county. “Nuckols Christmas Tree Plantation is one of our oldest wholesale-turned-retail operations. Making the transition from wholesale to retail was a natural occurrence given the fact that tree prices basically have remained the same over the past decade,” he says.

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Richard Nuckols (left) and Extension agent David Smith (right), standing in a planting of Blue Ice Cyrpress, discuss soil fertility and soil testing on the farm.

Growers who switch to retail production find that marketing trees is a task of its own. “One of the biggest challenges with local agricultural retail businesses is the transition to websites to capture on-line sales and shoppers,” says David Smith. Richard successfully navigated this transition recently, creating a website with photos and information about the trees to reach more customers searching for the farm online. The farm also takes advantage of the visibility offered by the “Virginia Grown” marketing program coordinated by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Richard is also supported through his membership in the Virginia Christmas Tree Growers Association. “Producers affiliating with associations such as Christmas tree associations receive the benefit of additional public exposure. Because associations have the support of multiple producers they should take the lead to help producers capture on-line traffic,” adds Smith.

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During Richard’s childhood, the plantation grew White Pines and Scotch Pines. Today, offerings include Leyland Cypress, Canaan Fir, Norway Spruce, Douglas Fir, Scotch Pine, White Pine, Colorado Blue Spruce, Blue Ice Cypress, and fresh-cut Fraser Fir. When it comes to needle size, needle retention, fragrance, size, shape, and feel, the farm has a tree for every taste and need. “If you have an obnoxious cat, that’s a good tree,” he jokes in reference to his Blue Spruce.

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Some trees are more sensitive to warm soil temperatures than others, so Richard strategically takes advantage of the shade offered by the woods bordering the farm. Others, like the cypress, prefer a more basic soil than other trees, so Richard plants them in an area that has been amended with lime. He has found that the trees need no irrigation and little to no fertilizer.

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Fertilizing trees may not be a high priority, but make no mistake about the maintenance requirements for a Christmas tree farm. Growing trees is year-round job with extra time demands not just during the holiday season but also during the summer. Tree shearing dates vary by tree because each type has different growth habits, but once shearing begins, it is a seven-day-per-week, eight-hour-per-day commitment.

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When he is not shaping trees, Richard must scout for pests like bagworms and scale which can be destructive on any kind of tree farm. By using predator insects to control scale in recent years, he has noticed a deep reduction in his need to spray trees, and lately he has been able to keep the bagworms in check by removing them as he sees them. The deer are another more difficult story. They can kill two dozen of his trees in a year just by rubbing them, but thankfully most of his larger trees recover from the damage or can be salvaged for wreath material if they become unfit for sale. In fact, wreaths form another portion of the farm’s revenue stream.

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Planting is another time-consuming annual farm chore. Richard has to plant nearly two thousand trees each year so that several hundred trees per year will be ready for sale further down the road. Of the two thousand initially planted, only a portion ultimately survives from seedling to sale due to environmental conditions, pests, and other stressors. Some, like White Pine, may show nearly 95% percent survival, while other more difficult trees may have a 25% survival rate. To further complicate planning the planting, some trees such as the Cypress may grow far more quickly than their peers, and Richard must account for the fact that all trees take several years to reach a saleable size.

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When he approaches the Christmas season, he projects his inventory by counting the number of trees that meet his standards for quality. Those which are too large, too small, have bare spots, or look stressed do not make his count for potential saleable trees, but he has found that customers sometimes surprise him with their choices. One time, a customer chose a tree which was yellowing on the bottom and green at the top. He cautioned the buyer that a different tree would look healthier and last longer, but this person insisted that he had found the perfect Green Bay Packers-themed tree.

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The operation opens for sales each year the day after Thanksgiving, and Richard says that opening weekend was the busiest weekend of the holiday season at the farm last year. What does the future hold for the Nuckols Christmas Tree Plantation? Hopefully plenty of healthy new trees and fewer deer are on the horizon. 2014 is already shaping up to be a good sales season so long as the rain holds off on the busy weekends. Richard also has tradition his side—as long as families continue to choose fresh-cut, Virginia Grown trees during the holidays, his farm full of carefully-tended, beautifully-shaped trees will remain a fixture in Central Virginia’s landscape.

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Additional Resources for Readers:

Nuckols Christmas Tree Plantation webpage

Virginia Grown searchable directory

Virginia Christmas Tree Growers Association webpage

Introduction to Growing Christmas Trees in Virginia publication