Going Green with the Christmas Tree
Having a live Christmas tree that you plant outdoors after the holidays may seem like the green thing to do. But there are complexities to consider. It’s a lot of trouble and the tree’s long-term survival is iffy.
1. You would have to dig the hole before the ground freezes — by Thanksgiving, to be safe. You’d have to cover the pile of soil to keep it from freezing until you backfilled the hole.
2. Trees don’t normally live in houses and indoor heated air is very tough on them. You would only be able to keep the tree indoors for a few days, watering it diligently, and then would have to plant it outdoors right away. And you still would stress it.
3. It would be very hard to maneuver the heavy tree in and out of the house. The root ball on a 4- or 5-foot tree can weigh a couple of hundred pounds.
4. How would you water it indoors? You would have to put it in a galvanized washtub or other very large waterproof container. Which means you would have to lift it, and remember, it would weigh a ton.
5. You would have to go easy on the decorations, which can break branches, and the lights, which can dry out the tree.
6. The kind of tree you think of as a Christmas tree might not be what you need in your landscape in the long term. Any of the traditional evergreens might rapidly outgrow your space. It would be smarter to choose a kind of tree or shrub that is right for your yard — possibly a deciduous species — even if it doesn’t look much like what you think of as a Christmas tree.
7. A live tree likely will end up being more expensive than a cut tree and you may not have much of a choice — unless you buy it soon, while nurseries have a good selection, and keep it, watered, with the root ball covered in mulch, in a sheltered spot until Christmas.
