It’s almost time for Maine’s Christmas tree growers to shape their plants into cones using long sweeps of sword-like knives, marking the midpoint in a long, busy season producing the iconic holiday evergreens.
Though the trees are on most people’s minds for just a month or two in the winter, producing them is nearly a year-round job involving heavy equipment and manual labor for those who do it on a commercial scale.
Maine-grown Christmas trees bring in $18 million to the state each year and provide more than 800 jobs, according to state estimates. Many farms also produce wreaths and garlands, have retail businesses on their farm and sell wholesale.
The growing season begins in earnest about eight months before the holiday, when growers plant hundreds of young trees in April. Most Christmas trees are cut within eight to 10 years, but the tallest can grow for two decades.
Next, the growers mow between the trees, fertilize and apply herbicides. The fun begins in late June and early July, said Matthew Quinn, vice president of the Maine Christmas Tree Association. He has about 12,000 trees in the ground at Quinn’s Tree Farm in Cornville, and demonstrates his work on them through his YouTube channel.
“I go and swing it like a Samurai sword and slice off the new growth to get the consumer what they know and love,” he said, referring to a long shearing knife that growers compare to swords or machetes.
Different growers “shear” their trees differently. Swinging the knife up and down the sides of the tree once it reaches waist height, they can shape it by hand in less than five minutes.
“You start at the top and you follow through all the way down and you shouldn’t be missing your legs when you finish your swing,” said Jesse Jimerson, a Newburgh tree grower.
The resulting shapes can be rated using U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines on a three-point scale. Trees can be labeled premium, number one, or number two, the spindly “Charlie Brown tree” some people love.
For some growers, the sword work comes from the heart. Jimerson imagines a child’s drawing of a tree as he shears his 30 acres of evergreens at Piper Mountain Christmas Trees in Newburgh.
They also prune the top sprout of the tree, called the basal leader, so the tree’s energy will go toward filling out rather than reaching upward.
“It’s like a hydra,” Jimerson said. “You cut off its head and two more grow in its place.”
Branches on the bottom foot or so of the tree can be cut any time of year.
By the first week of November, trees are being cut down for wholesale and greens will be gathered for wreaths and garlands. Families will start showing up to the farms for holiday card pictures and trees to take home after Thanksgiving.
Tree prices jumped after the pandemic by about 5-10% across the country as growers faced increasing costs and inflation, according to multiple media reports. Those increases leveled off in some places last year.
Members of the Maine Christmas Tree Association posted prices last season of around $50-$60 for trees up to eight feet and $75-105 for taller ones.
Still, a stable number of customers appear each year, according to growers. People who grew up with live trees tend to buy them for their own families, and the same goes for those used to artificial ones, said Quinn.
Taller trees are becoming more popular as architecture changes. More homes are being built with high ceilings and open spaces that people want to fill.
The season ends abruptly on December 25, but starts up again soon. The Jimersons, for one, go to the craft store on December 26 to stock up on ribbons for next year’s wreath bows.
