The Garden Professors™

I just can’t resist telling our Christmas tree hunting tradition.

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, we drive out to Monroe (about 45 minutes north of Seattle) to our favorite tree farm, where we look for the perfect noble fir.  Here, Jim demonstrates his dubious taste in trees:

This year, Charlotte brought a tennis buddy home from college. Nasko lives in Bulgaria and wasn’t traveling home for a holiday they don’t celebrate.  So he got to experience the Great Scott Tree hunt for himself:

My son Jack (on the left) complained that he NEVER got to choose the tree (Mom retains veto power over all selections), and happily for all of us this year he picked the winner:

Jim does the cutting, and the kids do the carrying:

This tree farm also has hot chocolate and candy canes, which we all enjoy before returning to town (Monroe that is) and having lunch at the local Taco Bell. It’s a tradition that started when the kids were littler and you don’t mess with tradition.

Needless to say, we will ALWAYS have a real tree.

My post on Christmas tree safety got blog readers Michael and Thad into the never-ending debate of what’s better for the environment: a real Christmas tree or a fake one.  As is often said: “Where you stand depends on where you sit.”  In the interests of full disclosure I will admit my bias is on the real tree side.  My first job in high school was shearing Christmas trees back when minimum wage was $1.65 /hour (1976).  Also in the interest of full disclosure I work closely with the Christmas tree growers in Michigan and elsewhere and get a small amount of research support from the state grower’s association.  

Michael and Thad’s discussion turned pretty quickly to the bottom-line when it comes to carbon footprint.  Which choice looks better depends on the assumptions you are willing to make.  The critical ones, of course, are how long do you keep a fake tree and how far do you drive to get a real tree.  If you buy one artificial tree and keep it 50 years it replaces 50 real trees.  If you buy a real tree from a tree lot that’s on you way home and don’t make a special tree to get it, the real tree comes out looking good.  The American Christmas Tree Associate (a trade association for artificial trees, NOT a growers’ group) has commissioned a life cycle assessment and claim the carbon footprint question is a wash  http://www.christmastreeassociation.org/Article%20Pages/choosing-an-artificial-or-real-christmas-tree   This is in contrast to some earlier claims they had made the artificial trees were greener – based largely on the distance driven to get a real tree.

One thing to note is that there are other environmental impacts besides carbon emissions to consider.  Artificial trees are typically made from non-biodegradable plastics and most Christmas tree plantations require some pesticide and fertilizer inputs to keep trees looking good.  In many parts of the country Christmas tree plantation can provide habitat for certain types of wildlife, especially birds that use the trees for perches and nesting.  

Hannah and I embark on Tree-hunt 2011…

While everything seems to get boiled down to carbon comparison these days there are certainly more things to consider.  For those that buy a tree at a local ‘choose and cut’ farm, there is certainly the satisfaction that at least some of your holiday purchases are supporting the local economy.  At the end of the day, however, the debate between real vs. fake for most people gets down to one of two factors: tradition and convenience.  Even though my heart is on the real tree side, I can’t deny that pulling an artificial tree out of a box from the attic each year is easier than going out on a cold wet, December day and getting a tree from a farm and then bringing it home and setting it up.  But my mom was German and we always had a real tree in the house when I grew up.  Now that I have my own family, my daughter and I have a tradition of going out to a local Choose and cut tree farm and looking for the perfect Fraser fir.  No artificial tree can ever replace that. 

Fraser firs at Daisy Hill farm.  Still got a couple years to go, but eventually I’ll be cutting my own.

Over the years I’ve gotten a lot of questions about how to compost.  I’m not a composting expert, and don’t want to pass myself off as one, but I do understand the basics and I like to think of myself as a proponent of composting.  Having said that, there is a composting practice which I’m asked about frequently that I never know quite how to answer.  Should you put meat into your compost?

The easy answer to the question of whether meat belongs in compost is that it is an organic material which will break down just fine along with all of the vegetable matter in your compost.  But there’s more to it than that.  I’ve been to some areas that specifically forbid meat in compost because of the vermin that it will attract.  And it’s true, at least to some extent, that meat attracts vermin.  Rats, raccoons, and other mammals will go after meats.  It’s the high protein content.  How can they resist?  While leaves and grass can have as much as 4% nitrogen, meats will typically have between 5 and even as high as 16% nitrogen.  Of course they go for it! 

Besides the vermin issue, if raw meat is placed in a compost pile it tends to stink, especially if it isn’t mixed into the pile.  Cooked meat (table scraps) breaks down a little bit more slowly than raw meat and doesn’t stink as much.  Because of the high nitrogen content of meat it will get a compost pile to compost a little bit faster.  Personally, I’m in favor of using meat in compost piles as long as you’re careful to turn the pile frequently to keep it inside the pile where it can’t do as much harm.  If you’re a casual composter then you might want to avoid using meat because of the potential problems.  So there it is – in my mind the answer to whether you should put meat in compost or not comes down to how closely you like to monitor your pile, whether there are laws against it in your area, and also the likelihood of mammals getting into it where you live.  Also, at most meat should be a small component of a compost pile — not the main component.

I’ve been teaching plant physiology or related courses for a long, long time, and one of the tenets is that woody plants don’t heal.  In contrast to animal tissues, when trees and shrubs are wounded the damaged tissues are permanently destroyed.  Wounds are compartmentalized and covered with wound wood.  Arborists are fond of saying "plants seal, not heal."

That’s all fine and good for woody plant parts, but what about grafts?  Since grafting reconnects cambial and phloem tissues, is this "healing?" And what about nonwoody plants, like annual flowers and vegetables? 

Oddly, this type of information is sadly lacking in physiology textbooks, but it’s a question that I get routinely from gardeners.  And it’s not just an exercise in semantics.  People make some poor choices in treating tree wounds, for example, laboring under the false impression that such wounds should be treated with wound paint or bandages so they can "heal."

(with apologies to Blue Oyster Cult)

‘Tis the season for all things Christmas, including the annual hysterical reports of the dangers of real Christmas trees.  Along with heartwarming reports of Thanksgiving feasts at the local homeless shelter and live remotes of frenzied Black Friday shoppers, footage of Christmas trees going up in flames seems to be a staple of every network affiliate in the country.  In fact, in some cases the intrepid reporter will go to great lengths to insure that the Tannenbaum ignites the obligatory conflagration http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9dNS5WPncU

What the talking head doesn’t want to tell you is that a fresh, well-maintained Christmas tree is very difficult to ignite.  Numerous fire agencies and others have documented that a fresh tree that is kept watered will self-extinguish even if exposed to direct flame.  And faulty wiring is even less likely to ignite a fresh tree.  The story changes completely, however, if trees are allowed to dry.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNjO3wZDVlA

Of course, dry trees drop needles as well. So the key to keeping your Christmas safe (and tidy) is to get a fresh tree and keep it watered.  For many trees this means checking and re-filling the water daily, especially during the first week when the tree is brought in the home.  It’s not a real Christmas without a real tree – make sure it’s a safe one as well.