‘Tis the season to deck the halls, chime the silver bells, and listen for Santa up on the housetop - all that good stuff from the old songs. One of the most iconic symbols of the holiday season is a towering Christmas tree bedecked with lights and covered in sentimental ornaments. And unless you have a trusty artificial model stuffed in the attic, you need to go out and find the perfect evergreen to make your home festive. In Loudoun County, residents have several options not just for finding the right tree, but also for supporting local businesses.
In December, families turn out by the hundreds to visit Christmas tree farms. Moms, dads, kids, and even grandparents, aunts, uncles, and/or the family pet pile into the car hoping to come home with their tree of choice tied to the roof. According to tree farmer Louis Nichols of Loudoun Nursery, local families had many more options for tree farms just a short while ago. At the turn of the millennium there were sixty Christmas tree farms in operation in Loudoun. Now, there are just eleven. What this means is that demand is hotter than ever at the few remaining nurseries.
Nichols inherited the Christmas tree business from his parents, who started growing trees in the 1960s and have been working steadily for fifty years now. Nichols’ business partner, Terry Fairfax, has been part of the Loudoun Nursery family for forty of those years. Nichols points out that growing Christmas trees is an expensive and time-consuming business. As trees need to grow for an average of ten years before they are mature enough to be cut, farmers don’t see an immediate profit from their efforts. In the meantime, farmers have to maintain the land, pay taxes on it, and invest in equipment and manpower to take care of the fledgling trees.
Mark Wolff runs another Loudoun tree farm, Snickers Gap Farm. Snickers Gap was started by Wolff’s parents, and is being run today by his brother, Steven. Wolff says that hot summers take a toll on Christmas trees, which must also be pruned and sheared for 10-12 years (for a 7-foot tree) to give the specimen the right shape. Farmers have to plant more trees than they plan on selling, since inevitably some trees will either not take to the land or be destroyed by disease or pests. Customers want perfect trees, not those that have been blighted or nibbled on by deer.
No matter what your specifications for the ideal holiday fir, pine, or spruce, it’s a safe bet that a local Loudoun tree farm has what you are looking for!
