By Shawn Dell Joyce 

Nothing says Christmas quite like a wild evergreen tree decked out with sparkling lights and loaded with gift-wrapped boxes. Before you head out into the woods with your axe, consider a greener alternative.

The greenest tree is a potted Douglas Fir tree from a local nursery, that you can plant outdoors in warm weather.  Your little fir tree will clean your indoor air during the holidays, and clean carbon out of the atmosphere year round when you transplant it.  If you bought a live tree every year, and planted it in spring, you could offset your family’s carbon footprint in twenty years and create a green holiday tradition.

If you don’t have room (or the inclination) for a live tree, consider a locally grown tree. Christmas trees and greens are agricultural products that add to the economic and environmental health of your region. These trees are grown specifically for the holidays on marginal lands that wouldn’t support other crops.  Buying one of these trees stimulates your local economy, and improves the life of a local farm family.

“Go without a twinge of environmental guilt,” suggests Deborah Brown a horticulturist from University of Minnesota Extension Service. “During the seven to ten years that a Christmas tree grows, the tree provides wildlife habitat and helps hold the soil and prevent erosion,” says Brown. “Commercial tree operations plant and harvest trees every year. Each year’s harvest is quickly renewed, and tree farms never strip large portions of land for a single year’s holiday greenery.”

If you live in a place where a live tree won’t work, consider a second-hand artificial tree. Plastic trees require major amounts of petroleum to manufacture and generate tons of greenhouse gasses in the process. Plus they are generally not recyclable, and wind up in landfills. Using that second-hand tree for several years helps to lessen its environmental impact. It is usually more economical than a cut tree.

Here are a few farms that sell holiday trees in our area courtesy of Cornell Cooperative Extension:

Hoeffner Farm, 405 Goodwill Road, Montgomery

C. Rowe & Sons Farm, 113 Station Road, Campbell Hall

Christmas Tree Lane, 9 Christmas Tree Drive, Wallkill

Farm Side Acres, 280 Angola Road, Cornwall

Indigot Creek Christmas Tree Farm, Camp Stadie Road, Middletown

Manza Family Farm, 730 Route 211, Montgomery

Pierson Farm, 1448 Route 211 West, Montgomery

Pine View Farm, 575 Jackson Ave. New Windsor

Stone Oak Farm, 207 Stony Bar Road, Slate Hill

Shawn Dell Joyce is an award-winning newspaper columnist and director of the Wallkill River School in Montgomery. www.WallkillRiverSchool.com

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 4th, 2010 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Shawn Dell Joyce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.