How To Make Your Christmas Tree Last Longer
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How to make your Christmas tree last longer this year. These 6 easy tips will keep your Christmas tree fresh and beautiful all through the holiday season.
Are you wondering how you can make your Christmas tree last longer this year?
Real Christmas trees can be a large investment and you would likely want to keep it looking beautiful as long as possible right?
When I was a girl, we always had a fake tree, but I still loved it. It was huge, reaching almost to our ceiling, and nice and full. It was always so much fun working with our Grandma to decorate our family Christmas tree each season.
It wasn’t until I was married that we started using a real Christmas tree, and I loved it! It just seemed to make our home so much warmer during the holiday season to have a real Christmas tree.
The downside is that real trees can drop a lot of needles and need a little care to keep them fresh. But it isn’t hard to keep a Christmas tree in good shape and have it last all Christmas season.
To properly care for your Christmas tree, you will need to make sure it has the right water, humidity, and food.
How To Make Your Christmas Tree Last Longer
Choose A Longer Lasting Christmas Tree
These 5 types of trees last the longest as Christmas trees.
1. Concolor Fir has soft blue-green needles and a slight citrus smell when you first bring it indoors. These trees when cut, can last for months under the right conditions if you wanted it to.
2. Fraser fir tree is dark green and will last you about five weeks indoors. The Fraser fir is a popular tree at Christmas time, and for good reason, it’s affordable and a beautiful, long-lasting Christmas tree.
3. Douglas fir has soft and fluffy bright green needles. It will last about four weeks indoors and is another beautiful, long-lasting Christmas tree.
4. Scotch pine is a lower-priced Christmas tree with blue-green needles. The Scotch pine will last about three weeks indoors and is the most popular Christmas tree in Canada.
5. White Spruce trees are another popular Christmas tree and will last for at least two weeks indoors. They have short 2 cm long needles that are dark green. The needles are stiff and slightly curved and give off a strong odor when crushed.
The spruce tree has dense foliage and a symmetrical shape making it a beautiful Christmas tree. Spruce trees need a lot of water when kept indoors. Regular watering will keep your tree from losing its needles.
How To Tell If Your Live Christmas Tree Is Fresh
Once you have decided on what type of Christmas tree you want for your family try to buy a tree grown as locally as possible. Not only will this give you the freshest possible Christmas tree, but you will also be helping to support your local economy.
If you can make a trip to a cut your own tree farm, as a second choice, find a tree stand that sells locally grown trees.
Make sure to feel the tree needles before buying. The needles should not fall off when you touch them or it’s not fresh and could have been cut more than a week before.
A good test is to hold a branch about six inches in from the tip between your thumb and finger. Pull your hand towards you, allowing the branch to slide through your fingers. The needles should stay firmly attached to the tree and not fall off into your hand.
Care During Transport
Make sure you take extra care bringing your Christmas tree home. Don’t break the branches or bend the top of the tree.
When you get your tree home, cut off a 1-inch slice at the bottom of the tree where it was cut. This will allow it to soak up the water after you set the Christmas tree up in your home.
Make Sure To Give Your Tree Water As Soon As Possible
When you buy flowers and bring them home, what do you do? You place them in the water right away of course! Well, trees are the same way, it needs to be placed into water to keep it fresh.
After you have cut the bottom 1 inch off your tree, make sure you add warm water to the tree reservoir. Remember to check the water level daily and top it up as needed.
Trees are very thirsty and can drink up to 4 liters of water per day. Make sure to use a tree stand that can hold at least 4 liters of water so you don’t have to fill it up more than once a day.
If you allow the water level to get too low, a seal will form on the bottom of the trunk, and your tree will not be able to suck up water. If this happens, you will need to cut off another inch from the bottom of the trunk.
If your tree has already started to dry out, use these tips to revive your Christmas tree.
Feed Your Christmas Tree
To help your Christmas tree stay fresh longer you need to make sure it has the nutrients it needs. You can buy pre-packaged tree preservatives or easily make your own.
Just adding a few tablespoons of white sugar to the warm water before you pour it into your tree stand will help. But you can make your own Christmas tree food really easy from simple pantry ingredients too.
Click here for easy DIY Christmas tree preservative recipes
Keep Your Christmas Tree Away From Heat
Don’t place your Christmas tree near heat vents, baseboard heaters, or space heaters. Not only is it a safety concern having your tree near these things, the hot dry heat causes the tree to dry out quickly and start dropping its needles.
Raise The Humidity
If possible, use a humidifier to raise the humidity in the room you’re keeping the Christmas tree. Not only will your tree stay fresher longer you’ll feel better too! The dry winter air plays havoc on our skin as well.
When Christmas is over, be sure to recycle your tree. Most towns have tree pick-up days, but if not, find a local compost center to drop your tree off at.
If you garden, consider mulching the tree to use in your flower beds. If you raise goats or rabbits, they will love to eat up your tree branches! Just be sure to remove all ornaments before giving it to them.
Once your tree is all set up have fun making Christmas ornaments with your family. These easy to make yarn mini hat ornaments are adorable and a fun project for kids!
Do you have a favorite type of Christmas tree?
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Kim Mills is a homeschooling mom of 6 and lives on an urban homestead in Ontario, Canada. Blogging at Homestead Acres she enjoys sharing tips to help you save money, grow and preserve your own food.
Thanks for sharing these great tips! I’d never even thought of “feeding” my tree before, but this year I will mix up some sugar water for sure.
I find that “feeding” the tree really makes a big difference!
Great information! I usually set up my aluminum tree, but this year I’m hoping to get a real one.
Sounds great! I still remember the first year we had a real tree. I love having one now although I’ll admit I still put up our fake one and the real one each year!