The art of growing the ultimate Christmas tree
Growing Christmas trees is a fine art – just ask Manawatu¯ man Bryan Wilton.
Wilton, who owns Real Xmas Trees, has been growing trees for 31 years and he will tell you how much work goes in planting, pruning and selling them.
Wilton has three blocks growing pine trees, two at Halcombe and one at Sanson, and every Christmas his phone runs hot with people wanting a Christmas tree, so it’s all hands on deck.
He sells from a container at Memorial Park in Palmerston North and takes truckloads of trees to sell in Wellington. He also sells trees to Palmerston North’s Landscape Supply Yard and he has previously sold them to petrol stations.
He plants every year, then they’re ready for sale once they are 2 to 5 years old.
During the year he prunes them about every two months. If the trees were left to grow the branches would get too long and wouldn’t look good, he said.
He shapes the trees to look like a bush, while his son Nathan makes them look like a cone.
Wilton said it’s not good if people can see through the tree – they want bushy trees.
They start cutting trees in November and start selling in December.
‘‘We’ll be ripping down trees left, right and centre as long as they can fill the truck up.’’
Trees cost about $40 to $80. Wilton has a simple measuring tool for when they’re ready: They’re either as tall as him, six-feet tall, and ready to go. And if they reach as high as his arm above his head, they’re eight-feet high and ready.
Sheep keep the grass around the trees down, but Wilton and his workers maintain and then cut down the young trees, or what he calls ‘‘New Zealand’s biggest weed’’.
He plants in winter and spring, then watches hares come in and eat the tops off the trees, so employs ‘‘science’’ to solve that problem: ‘‘Plant more of them than they can eat.’’
Wilton said in logging about 840 stems of trees a hectare was planted, but for Christmas trees it was 1200 stems a hectare.
It is better to be dry than wet for trees’ growing cycle.