Christmas Tree Farmers say they’re already off to a busy start with more people decorating earlier this season. And to meet the demand Kevin Steele of Steele’s Christmas Tree Farm in Washington Parish said for the first time they opened the weekend before Thanksgiving.
“Just my phone blowing up basically from almost daylight to dark, that’s no exaggeration, people wanting to know when we’re open and what type of trees are available,” says Steele.
But if you’re dead set on a certain type of tree you might be out of luck. Kay Gersch of Yawn Station Christmas Tree Farm in Livingston Parish said Fraser Firs are hard to come by.
“We were not able to get anything larger than like eight-foot this year, we usually get 100 eight to nine-foot, but we got 21 trees that were over eight-foot,” said Gersch.
Farmers say there are plenty of pick and cut trees from Louisiana growers even though Ida did leave her mark this summer on local growers. Gersch said some of their barns lost roofs and their trees were also impacted, a majority had to be re-supported.
“But it was a wet storm and when you have a wet storm then you can pick your trees back up usually, and we lost a few,” said Gersch.
Expect to pay a bit more for a tree this year due to price increases on pesticides and fertilizers.
Comments