Past slumps cut Christmas tree supply this year

Now that you’ve started your holiday shopping, you might want to think about where you will stash those gifts. Under the tree? Not so fast.

It will be harder to find Christmas trees this year, and that may drive up prices 5% to 10%, according to the National Christmas Tree Association. Don’t blame the Grinch.

Back when the economy was tanking, Christmas tree sales dropped, so growers didn’t cut down as many trees. That left less room to plant new ones.

“The trees we’re harvesting today were planted eight to 10 years ago,” said Doug Hundley, the Washington-based trade group’s seasonal spokesman.

Last year, 27.4 million Christmas trees were sold, the most popular of which were the noble and Fraser firs, he said.

“We believe everyone who wants to have a real tree will find one,” Hundley said. “They may not have the size they want, or they might have to buy a different kind.”

Transporting the trees to wholesalers and retailers around the USA will be more expensive this year.

“The cost of freight on the darn things is up quite a bit, because diesel is up,” said Jayne Mitchell, who runs Tim Mitchell’s Christmas Trees in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Gilbert, Ariz. “I was unpleasantly surprised.”

Diesel fuel prices averaged $2.84 a gallon Monday, 46 cents more a gallon than a year ago, according to AAA.

The decreasing number of growers also poses a challenge to finding the perfect Christmas tree.

“There were a lot of tree growers that went out of business” during the recession, said Dee Clark, owner of C&G Nursery in Newland, N.C.