Christmas trees in short supply as demand grows

Unless you’re planning to follow Clark Griswold’s strategy and cut one down yourself, it might be tough to find a Christmas tree this year.

Nikki van Duyvendyk, co-owner of Dutch Growers, said there’s been a shortage of trees over the past few years due to a crop failure, and the COVID-19 pandemic also drove up demand for real trees.

(Mia Holowaychuk/650 CKOM)

“Everybody wanted live plants, live trees. It was just a huge trend during that time,” she said.

It takes years for the trees to reach the proper size, van Duyvendyk explained, so issues like a crop failure can persist over several seasons.

Dutch Growers gets trees from suppliers in British Columbia, van Duyvendyk said. This year they received about 830 trees. While that number is comparable to previous years, she said they still haven’t been able to get enough stock to keep up with the increasing demand for authentic Christmas trees.

Philip Rispens, co-owner of the Sherwood Greenhouse and Garden Centre in Regina, said they only received a single shipment of about 150 real Christmas trees this year.

“We actually got shorted on our order,” he said.

He said he believes a number of factors are contributing to the shortage, including recent droughts and labour issues.

Rispens said he’s seeing the high demand for Christmas trees, but he only has about 20 left at the greenhouse.

Both Rispens and van Duyvendyk said they don’t expect the shortage to end anytime soon.

“It’s going to be years,” van Duyvendyk said. “What we’ve been telling our customers is to just get your trees early.”

For those who did purchase a tree well in advance and want to keep it fresh until Christmas, van Duyvendyk advised keeping it outside in a shaded location on the northern side of a building, where the sun won’t dry it out.

When it’s time to bring it in the house, she said it’s important to cut the end of the trunk off, put it in water right away, and never let it dry out.

“It can’t go dry once,” she said.

Nikki van Duyvendyk with Dutch Growers shares some tips on keeping your real Christmas tree fresh pic.twitter.com/gjtazlNwXl

— 650 CKOM (@CKOMNews) December 15, 2022