Lexington, KY - Nearly everybody has an entertaining holiday story about a Christmas tree, be it funny, heartwarming or tragic. There's the one where the tree lost every needle the first night being up, or caught fire, or tumbled over on somebody. There's the one about the endearing family that makes an annual ritual out of bundling up the weekend after Thanksgiving and foraging for the perfect pine or fir which will illuminate their living room for the next month. There's the one about the overzealous dad with eyes bigger than his home's ceilings who couldn't even cram the coniferous beast into the entryway.
For Lexington's Christmas tree farmers, volumes of great holiday stories are made right out their front door.
Bill and Fredda Moody, who operate Christmas Memories Tree Farm, recall the young boy - who's not so young anymore - who shows up at their southern Fayette County farm every year to whack a tree down with a hatchet. They used to offer him a saw, but he waves it off; that's not part of the tradition. The Moodys sold their first Christmas tree in 1991, and since then they have seen a lot of families with children come back each year. And some of those children even have children of their own now who come to look through their pines and firs.
Christmas Memories Tree Farm may have sold its first tree in 1991, but Bill and Fredda have been growing trees since1986 - in the tree business, there's a considerable investment of time before you get a return. Depending on the species, Bill says a proper Christmas tree can require anywhere from seven to 11 years of growing time to reach a full-size, mature height. "It's a long-term process," he said. "I guess that's why some people don't go into the business. Plus, you have to have the land."
The Moodys estimate they have anywhere between 1,500 and 2,000 trees on roughly two acres of land, which is located off of Keene Road. They sold nine trees their first season, 69 the second season, and have sold more than 100 every season afterward. The couple admits that Christmas tree farming is more labor intensive than they had originally anticipated - aside from helping customers cut and load the trees during the holiday season, new seedlings must be planted in the spring or fall to replenish the crop, and each tree has to be trimmed annually to ensure that iconic Christmas tree form.
"People just think you can plant a seedling and come back in seven or 10 years and you've got a Christmas tree,"
Bill said. "That's not the case." Shaping each tree is more of an art
form than a science. While there is a specific window of time when the work needs to be done in the summer, each species of tree requires particular attention. And then, an individual tree's shape needs to be recognized and encouraged.
"Each tree has its own personality, so you've got to work with what you have and treat it the way it's growing," Fredda said. "We're still learning."
When the family first started their venture in 1986, the Moodys picked up a lot of tricks of the trade from the Kentucky Christmas Tree Association, a state-wide organization that provides cultivation and marketing advice to member farms.
Dale Barker, who operates Barker Christmas Tree Farm on Deerhaven Lane in southeast Fayette County, also relied on direction from the association when he first planted trees in 1995.
"I was crazy enough to plant 3,000 trees my first year," Barker said. "We probably lost about 500."
Barker Christmas Tree Farm now comprises about eight acres, with about 1,000 trees growing per acre. Barker estimates they sale somewhere around 500 trees each holiday season, which is about the most they can sell a year and still have a crop of ready trees available for the next season.
Along with providing a variety of quality trees, Barker also tries to offer the whole memory-making experience: a campfire, coffee and hot cocoa, pictures with reindeer statues. He says that the trees are the primary reason people come to the farm, but the complete holiday package brings a lot of families back each year.
"Some families come back just to have their picture taken again," he said. "The kids remember that more than anything."
Tom Nieman operates Nieman Tree Farm a few miles past Barker's farm on Todds Road - a larger enterprise with around 20,000 trees on 48 acres of land. You won't find any holiday accoutrements there - no cider, no candy canes, no fires - just trees.
"We don't do any of that. We only do trees, but we do them very well," Nieman said. "We don't need the cocoa and the sleigh rides, because the trees speak for themselves. They're so pretty."
Nieman began growing trees immediately after he and his wife purchased the property in 1978. Originally from Cincinnati, Christmas trees grow as well on his land as they do through his family tree - Nieman is a third-generation tree farmer; his grandmother started the first landscape nursery in Cincinnati in the late 1800s after she immigrated from Germany. His brother runs a large tree farm and nursery in Cincinnati.
As a landscape architect with the University of Kentucky, Nieman brings a background in botanical science to his crop, which has enabled him to unlock the secrets of growing the coveted Fraser fir - the quintessential Christmas tree - in this area. Fraser firs only occur typically at elevations over 4,500 ft. and grow primarily in North Carolina. Nieman is not a member of the Kentucky Christmas Tree Association, and he's shared the secret only with his son and his brother in Cincinnati, making these the only two farms in the region that offer uncut Fraser firs.
By and large, the Christmas trees available at large distribution points - places like Lowe's or Home Depot - are going to be Fraser firs, but by the time they've been shipped in from North Carolina and put on display, the trees have already been cut for a few weeks and may start to lose their needles soon after purchase. Customers often tell Nieman that the trees they buy at his farm the weekend after Thanksgiving aren't thrown out until mid-January.
While he offers many varieties of other trees pines, firs, cedars - Fraser firs are the ones people want to bring into their households.
"The Fraser is the Cadillac of the trees," he said. "They've got the color, they're full, the trunks are dead straight, good needle retention, strong branches - you can put those big ornaments on and it's no problem."
Nieman's trees do cost a little more compared to other area farms and places you can purchase a Christmas tree, but some families have been coming out to his farm for more than 25 years, and some travel from as far away as Nashville for one of his trees - a testament to the quality of trees Nieman harvests.
"If we were in it for the money, we probably wouldn't be in business," he said.