Looking for a tall, locally grown tree? Shop early, farmers say.

If your Christmas tree tastes mirror Clark Griswold’s in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” — tall, voluminous and raised locally — then the ideal conifer might be hard to find at an Illinois farm this season. Yet, growers want you to know that doesn’t mean the reduced supply is as sparse and frail as the sapling in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

“Around our farm, as I look at the crop available for harvest this year, I see nice trees that are 6 to 8 feet high. I can count up to about 5,500 trees. It’s a lot of trees, but if I was going to be open until December 20 like we used to be, I might need 8,000 trees to sell,” said George Richardson, co-owner of Richardson Farm in Spring Grove, which was Good Housekeeping’s pick in 2018 for best Christmas tree farm in Illinois. “And we don’t have that many.”

The Richardson family, fifth and sixth generation farmers whose three branches have planted Christmas trees on their property in McHenry

County since 1981, took to Facebook this week to tell customers about the operation’s shortened selling season. It expects all 5,500 of its Christmas trees grown over 130 acres to be sold by Dec. 5. Other local growers offer the same cautionary tale. Ben’s Christmas Tree Farm in Harvard is only open

Thanksgiving weekend and the first weekend in December. Lee’s Trees in Lily Lake has a limited number of tall trees grown on site, but is delivering precut trees from its Wisconsin farm to supplement.

Pioneer Tree Farm in McHenry might have more tall trees available than usual, but it was closed to the public in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Triple K Pines in Union will be open for three weekends starting the day after Thanksgiving. Co-owner Brenda Moehling expects she and her husband, Dale, will sell 150 trees, including some purchased from a vendor in Wisconsin. Thankfully, they have a plentiful gift shop full of evergreen trimmings including

wreaths, grave blankets and pillows — and gnomes — to

keep sales going.

Moehling says the family business might focus solely on selling decorations in the years ahead.

“Trees take too long to grow and we’re already 71,” she said. “By the time they’re ready to mature, we’re gonna want to quit.”

Reasons for the shortage of towering, locally grown trees

Changing tastes: When planting a crop, a Christmas tree farmer has to decide — or guesstimate — what varieties customers will want to buy almost a decade later when that crop is ready to be sold. Unfortunately for many local farms, owners underestimated how popular fir trees — with a dark blue-green color, fragrant scent and spreading, drooping branches — would become.

“Well, consumer preferences have gone away from the Scotch and white pines — the traditional Christmas trees we planted 20 years ago, 30 years ago and have gone more toward the Fraser fir/Canaan fir preferences. So, what we’re finding is we don’t have enough of those types of trees growing — and that’s what people want,” George Richardson said.

Time: Seedlings planted this year won’t be ready to harvest for about eight years — or longer, depending on the variety and desired height. “My personal opinion is that growers are having a hard time keeping up with the demand. We can’t just turn a switch and make more trees; it takes time, generally 8 to 10 years or more for a fir once you recognize the trend as being true and not just an aberration,” said Robert Richardson, president of the Illinois Christmas Tree Association — and brother of George Richardson.

Drought conditions: Severe drought was contained to a small area — 6.5% — of Illinois north of Interstate 80 and near the Wisconsin border this summer and limited tree growth, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Maybe next year’s hottest Christmas tree will be a tabletop version.