'Tis the season to drag a tree into your living room and try to keep it from becoming a dry fire hazard before New Years. My husband and I picked up our tree over the weekend and that act sent me to the internet looking for tips on how to prolong the life of a cut tree. Here are some tips I found along the way…
• When you purchase your tree, have the folks at the lot make a fresh cut to the trunk. This will help the tree absorb water.
• Get your cut tree into water as soon as you can. If you're not itching to decorate it right away, store the tree (in water) in a cool place, such as a garage.
• Once you do bring the tree indoors, keep it away from direct heat. The cooler the environment, the happier the tree.
• Keep the tree watered. Once the trunk dries out it will sap over and then it won't absorb water at all. And trees take a lot of water so check it twice daily to make sure it hasn't slurped up every last bit of liquid.
• I saw a few references to mixing aspirin and 7-Up into the basin of water. I also saw a lot of back-and-forth about whether this is effective in keeping the tree green longer. As much as I'd like to try it, I know that one of my cat's favorite holiday activities is drinking from the tree's reservoir so I'm going to stick with water.
• When decorating the tree, try to find lights that stay cool to the touch. Any heat will dry out the tree, even the heat from all those little lights wrapped around it.
• One brilliant tip I ran across a couple of times was rigging a tube and funnel system to the tree so that you don't have to crawl around on the floor to water it. Simply tie a long tube along the trunk of the tree and down into the water basin. At the top of the tube, affix a funnel. Pour the water into the funnel, it travels down the tube, and into the basin. Clever, eh?
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Be careful about letting your cat drink from the reservoir! That plain water may in fact have some preservatives in it that the tree lot may have sprayed on it, that can end up in the water and might be toxic.
I know someone who pretty much loathes Christmas because as a child he lost his beloved cat this way.
I wrap foil around mine to keep my cat out, with a tree skirt over it.
Tx for the tips! For lights that stay cool, LED lights are best and sold in many stores now. They are much less of a fire hazard and also use less energy!
Don't put any soft drinks or aspirin in the water or any other substance you may have heard of. Cut flowers as well as trees last longer when the water is fresh and contains no bacteria. Adding other things to the water could increase bacterial growth and thus reduce the life of your tree.
tube/funnel sounds too good to be true... you still have to crawl under the tree to check your water level as you pour.
crap.. just realized there's a heat register right where our tree is supposed to go...
Tree species makes a difference too - some trees will just naturally last longer than others. Colorado Blue Spruce retains its needles well, as do Balsam and Fraser Firs. If you cut a tree yourself, Scotch Pine will last for about a month, and it doesn't drop its needles when dry - very handy for end of season cleanup!
Why not buy a tree with roots and plant it once Christmas is over? I would never be able to enjoy Christmas knowing that a force-grown tree that took hundreds of liters of water to grow was slowly dying under its pretty lights and baubles while I unwrap gifts and knock back the eggnog. So no tree for me, until I have a garden !
I'm with you Caroline. I don't get what holiday joy there is in killing a living, beautiful tree, dragging it inside to hang sparkly stuff on it and essentially watch it become a big, dead fire hazard. For most, it also becomes a big piece of garbage to be hauled away (kudos to those who use it as firewood or compost). These days, with so much emphasis on green sustainability and environmental responsibility, I'm surprised how many people still insist on a real tree. Sad.
RKrueger, you can buy a magnetic cover for your heat register if you can go without using that register for a while. Bx, many believe a real tree is better than a fake tree. Now with the prelit trees, I know of many people buying fake trees more often when the lights don't work on their tree. Just that many more non biodegradable trees being thrown into the dump. I have lived in three different cities (in three different states) and they all made it very easy to recycle your real tree.
Caroline and Bx, I'm going to have to disagree with you. We bought (and will continue to buy) our tree from a tree farm. There are many farmers in our area that grow the trees specifically for this purpose. Meaning, when you buy a tree, a new tree is being planted in its place. Additionally, I'm planning to chop up our tree at the end of the season and save it for fire wood (as long as I don't come across any research which says this is a bad idea). If it turns out to be a bad idea, there are plenty of places that recycle the trees so that they are used for mulch in gardens. So in my eyes, I get to support local farmers, be green, and still have a beautiful, real tree in my home. PS: Even megastores like Home Depot purchase their trees from tree farms and I'm sure they are replanting if they want to stay in business.
Thanks hsmom and Moonie for mentioning tree-farmers, I think we need to not create more unemployment or (for those of you against real trees) fossil fuel produced plastic tree's (which also use fuel voraciously in energy to produce them and to transport them to us if you are concerned about greenness - not to begrudge foreign nationals jobs of course).
And for those of us who don't live in houses planting tree's really isn't an option (though one could get a Norfolk Pine for indoors and decorate it) - I can't tell you how many tree's we used as erosion control at my parents place, who also planted a couple of small xmas tree's.
There is also a wooden alternative tree - from Minnesota of course - Possibilitree (not affiliated). http://possibilitree.com/
I'm happy to support our local family owned and operated tree farmers.
Get the trunk cut at a slant and as soon as you get home fill the stand with Sprite or 7-up - that sugar will give the tree a good start - and every other day thereafter warm water