SOUTHERN MAINE – While Maine may be known as the Pine Tree State, come Christmas time, Windham resident Cheryl Kinney prefers an artificial tree.

Growing up in the 1960s, Kinney said her parents brought home an aluminum Christmas tree, one of the first alternative holiday trees ever made.

Much to the dismay of her natural-tree-preferring husband Brad, Kinney carried on the artificial tree tradition when she married and decorated her own home for Christmas. And now, Kinney’s penchant has trickled down to her six children, who are buying artificial trees for their own Yuletide celebrations. Kinney’s motivations are mostly environmental ones.

“I just think cutting down a tree for the sake of a month is a shame,” she said. “In my opinion, it’s just like cutting down the rain forest.”

Kinney’s story isn’t unique. She and millions of other Americans are opting for artificial trees in staggering numbers. It is a trend that is worrying natural Christmas tree growers.

Concerned with the advancement of the artificial tree market – which helps the Chinese factories where 85 percent of the petroleum-based trees are made, but hurts American tree farms – a move is underfoot to create a natural Christmas tree promotion council, similar to the beef, pork and dairy councils. The council, which would be subsidized by a 15-cent surcharge for each natural tree sold, was proposed by the National Christmas Tree Association.

According to the association, artificial tree sales in 2010 totaled $530 million, well more than half the $976 million generated by natural tree sales.

Since 2004, artificial tree sales have gone up and down with a peak of 17.4 million trees selling in 2007. Last year, 8.2 million artificial trees were sold.

Meanwhile, natural tree sales, which cost about half that of an artificial tree, have remained nearly constant, with sales ranging between a high of 32.8 million trees in 2005 and a low of 27 million in 2010.

Most of the sales of artificial trees are made at national retailers such as Walmart, Lowe’s and Home Depot. Christmas tree farms, where customers cut their own trees, racked up about 33 percent of natural tree sales in 2010, according to the National Christmas Tree Association. Nationally, the average cost of a real tree is $36 and the average cost of an artificial tree is $64, according to the association.

Artificial market booming

Home Depot spokeswoman Jen King said her company ramped up artificial tree sales in 2006 wanting to tap into the growing market.

“We’re getting a lot more interest in artificial trees, especially since they look so real. They are pre-lit, last longer obviously, and a lot easier to deal with,” she said.

While King said Home Depot is America’s largest seller of pre-cut natural trees, with 2 million sold last year, it has become one of the largest sellers of artificial trees, as well, increasing sales 300 percent from 2004 to 2010.

The surcharge proposal had been years in the making and was moving through the federal U.S. Department of Agriculture review process when the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, published an article on the proposal that characterized the fee as an overreaching tax. That stopped development of the council in its tracks in October. However, the push to establish a natural Christmas tree council is far from dead, supporters say.

“The USDA was accused of taxing Christmas trees, right at the start of the season, so it was very bad timing. But this is an idea whose time has come, and I expect we’ll see some sort of a council fairly soon,” said Jim Corliss, executive director of the Maine Christmas Tree Association and owner of Piper Mountain Christmas Trees in Newburgh.

While North Carolina is the largest producer of the Christmas trees in the country, Corliss said, Maine tree farms could benefit greatly from a national council, which would pay for Christmas tree promotional advertisements. And those who sell fewer than 500 trees a year wouldn’t have to pay the 15-cent fee.

“There are less of us,” Corliss said of Maine’s tree growers. “At one time we had 280 members. Now we’re down to 135. While the survivors are doing OK, collectively, we’re selling less trees. And we’re losing market share to artificial trees.”

Corliss, a former director of the national association, said a promotion council would help to reverse sluggish sales by educating consumers in three main areas: safety, environment and convenience.

For years, Corliss said, media have sensationalized the fire hazards of natural Christmas trees, failing to indicate the inherent dangers of fake trees, which can burn just as quickly and extinguish with greater difficulty.

Secondly, with the environment on Americans’ minds more than ever, Corliss says the image of chopping down a tree is hard for some – such as the Kinney family of Windham – to overcome. But, Corliss said, the 27 million trees cut down each year usually take seven or eight years to mature, and are then replanted, all the while helping replace carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with oxygen.

Lastly, the issue of convenience is a “tougher nut to crack,” Corliss said. Those who loathe the daily watering, falling needles and disposal hassles are likely to opt for an artificial tree, and the industry is doing everything it can to make having a natural tree more convenient, he said.

“As an industry,” he said, “we’ve already done a lot. We’ve made tree stands with the ability to hold a larger supply of water. We’re researching trees that hold their needles better. But all of these things would be easier to combat if we had the 15-cent assessment.”

Local farms

In greater Portland, Christmas tree farms are holding their own with some welcoming the 15-cent fee while others don’t see the need.

Doug Fortier, owner of Merry Christmas Trees on River Road in Windham, is a member of the board of directors for the Maine Christmas Tree Association and supports the 15-cent fee. While he’s seeing similar sales figures to past years, with population on the increase, he says, tree growers could be doing better and should band together to support the fee.

“As a way of promoting the natural tree, which is losing market share, the majority of growers across the country were for the fee,” Fortier said. “If there were no fake trees, I’d probably have the opportunity to sell more trees. No doubt. In the nation, more and more fake trees are being sold all the time.”

In Scarborough, Jim and Nancy Pearson, owners of Beech Ridge Farm on Beech Ridge Road, have a different take on the fake-versus-natural tree battle. “No, they do not hurt us one iota,” Nancy Pearson said of artificial trees. “People want a fresh tree with a nice odor. They want to go out in the fresh air and choose a tree. And that’s not going to change.”

Pearson said she isn’t a supporter of the fee, saying for her busy farm, at least, there’s no need.

“We sell out each year. We can’t keep growing them fast enough,” she added.

Ed Alquist, owner of Alquist Farm Stand in Gorham, agrees with Pearson, saying “artificial trees really don’t hurt the natural tree business.”

Alquist, whose farm runs a little differently from other Christmas tree suppliers by selling wild trees of varying heights that are not manicured throughout the growing season, says he isn’t worried for the natural Christmas tree market.

“I think the farmers who have quality trees are doing very well,” Alquist said. “I understand people who want an artificial tree – I have a daughter who’s allergic to fir trees, so she’s one of them – but there are a lot of people who want a natural tree, and will always want a natural tree.”

O’Donal’s Nursery in Gorham is seeing healthy sales figures for both their pre-cut and living trees (Christmas trees with the root-ball still intact). They have sold out of pre-cut trees the last two years and expect to this year, as well, said owner Jeff O’Donal, who said natural trees “are admittedly an awful lot of effort, but people do it because of tradition and they don’t want to give it up.”

O’Donal isn’t a fan of the fake tree for several reasons, not the least of which are their flammability and a 2004 recall of 100,000 invasive beetle-infested fake trees from China.

“They’re not any safer, actually they’re not even as safe. The plastic burns much faster and much hotter than a real tree would,” he said.

Sharon Lloy, who owns Balsam Ridge Christmas Tree Farm in Raymond with her husband Dewey, said this season’s farm’s sales figures are “similar to last year,” and while overhead in the form of insurance, fuel and fertilizer is on the rise, she remains skeptical of the nationwide 15-cent fee.

“There are other ways to gain funds,” Lloy said, “rather than passing it on to the customer.”

While the fee is on the backburner for now, Corliss, of the Maine association, is hoping the USDA “gets some backbone” and allows the creation of the natural Christmas tree council.

“I think we’ll get it back, there’s no reason not to do this. I think once the furor dies down, they’ll put it back,” Corliss said.

The Skaggs family of Windham, from left, Braeden, Jamey, Jeff
and Rianna, make their way to their car with the perfect Christmas
tree at Merry Christmas Trees farm on River Road in Windham last
week. (Photos by Rich Obrey)
Nancy Pearson, above, and her husband, Jim, closed their
Christmas tree farm early on Scarborough’s Beech Ridge Road this
season due to demand, and to let the remaining trees get started on
another year of growth. (Photos by Rich Obrey)
LeRoy Lowell and Pat Bessey of Rangeley were headed to a camp on
Sebago Lake when they stopped at Lowe’s in Windham and picked up a
small artificial tree last week.
Mark McGarity of Broadway Gardens in South Portland uses a web
of string Monday afternoon to ensure someone’s special Christmas
tree makes it home safely.
Tim French, of Waterboro, handles a newly selected Christmas
tree for a customer at O’Donal’s in Gorham.

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