It’s our fault that it may be a green Christmas, but what can we do? Not all hope is lost. It turns out there is a LOT we can do! Many folks begin with the Christmas tree.
Choosing an Eco-Friendly Christmas Tree: Real vs. Artificial
If you’re simply looking to make a better choice for the traditional tree, you can reduce pesticides and chemical fertilizers in the environment by searching for an organically grown Christmas tree. A quick search of “Christmas Tree Farmers of Ontario” and “organically grown Christmas trees Ontario” will help you there.
Growing real trees can capture carbon, reduce erosion, and, if done right (e.g. using sheep to ‘mow’) can be eco-friendly, especially if trees are sourced locally. Real trees are a ‘renewable resource’ and are biodegradable.
Artificial trees have a much larger carbon footprint associated with producing and shipping artificial trees, (carbon footprint statistics vary considerably). Artificial trees are made of plastic (aka fossil fuels), and they wind up in the garbage after families get tired of them. Plastic trees provide no habitat which real trees do during production and can after Christmas.
Creative Ways to Reuse Your Christmas Tree After the Holidays
What about after Christmas? I have a confession. When I lived in town, I DID go out every year and steal my neighbour’s discarded trees from the curbside. I’d prop them up near the birdfeeder to shelter my feathered friends.
In spring, I’d chop up the small branches and use them in my compost. The trunks, I’d put along the property margins to provide habitat.
You can also donate used real trees to conservation authorities. Some groups, such as Conservation Halton, accept your post-holiday trees when they’ve done their work. They use these trees for stream restoration, fastening them down to stabilize the banks and provide habitat. Some groups chip them for garden mulch. Others sink them in lakes to shelter fish.
Everyone’s big question: “What about a potted tree?” It IS possible, with provisos. It’s best done with a purchased potted tree.
Digging it yourself is difficult and would need to be done the previous spring, allowing the roots a chance to adapt and establish. The overarching challenge is water.
Caring for Your Potted Tree: Tips for Winter Survival
For all options discussed here, plants can’t be allowed to get too dry (easy in a winter-dry home!) OR (especially) to have their root zone sit in water. Conifers (cone-bearing trees) hate that! Keep the plant outside and cool until it’s time to decorate it. It’s even a good idea to have a big saucer under the tree, filled with pebbles. Fill the saucer with water almost up to the top of the pebbles. This creates an envelope of humidity around the tree.
Again, never have the bottom of the pot IN the water. As soon as possible, after Christmas, get it outside. Keeping a plant alive inside a home, for the entire winter – a plant that would usually spend the winter outside – is a really difficult, almost impossible balancing act, watering-wise. Instead, there are a couple of options to overwinter a live tree.
If you have somewhere cold and bright, such as a garage with windows or an unheated glassed entrance to your front door, that works, but you’ll have to make sure the soil doesn’t get too dry…or wet. <sigh>
A better option, with a bit of planning, is to put it in the ground. Dig the hole ahead of time, before freeze-up. Cover the excavation with boards for safety. Reserve a big bucket of soil where it can be kept frost-free.
After the holidays, plant it IN the pot, filling around the pot with the soil you saved earlier. This will keep it dormant until spring.
Wrap it with burlap until early spring. (Here’s a video we created that will show you how to wrap an evergreen. This applies to trees that are newly planted in the past season as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLh3AUsjh10&pp=ygUnU2VhbiBKYW1lcyBDb25zdWx0aW5nICYgRGVzaWduIHdyYXBwaW5n
(As always, please click that subscribe button! Thanks!)
One more little thing, if you CAN, choose a native tree such as a Balsam Fir, White Pine or a White Spruce, for all those creatures that might be able to feed on them, kickstarting the food chain. Conversely, Scots Pine is now officially considered invasive and is suffering from newly problematic diseases.
The Environmental Cost of Artificial Trees
Back to artificial trees… As mentioned, the carbon footprint for an artificial tree is much larger than that of a living tree. According to Earth.org (https://earth.org/real-vs-fake-christmas-tree-environmental-impact/)
One would have to reuse a Christmas tree for as many as 12 years (https://www.christmastreeassociation.org/2018-acta-life-cycle-assessment )
Or, according to the Washington Post, as little as 5 years ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/11/25/artificial-tree-real-christmas-environment/).
After that, it’s all better.
A More Meaningful Christmas: Traditions, Gifts, and Giving Back
Me? I have an artificial tree. It is a hand-me-down. Before that I hadn’t had a tree in 20 years. My indoor ornaments are all heirloom. It seems to be a question of ‘timeline’.
What else can you do?
Go back to old traditions of making ornaments such as strings of popcorn or pretty things made of dried fruit. These are also great family activities! It gets a bad rap (wrap?) but regifting is okay.
Some of my most treasured possessions were not new when I got them. Consider NOT gifting (except maybe where kids are concerned, and even then think about donating to an environmental charity as a gift occasionally when they get a bit older and can understand the ‘good’).
Several years ago, a friend reached out to our social group, asking that we refrain from getting them gifts. She explained that they had enough ‘stuff’ and they’d be putting their holiday budget toward charity donations. I’ve tried to follow their lead.
I may still GET a gift for a friend occasionally, but it might just be something I know they’d like or need, and it could be ‘Happy…Tuesday’ instead of needing to be ‘Happy Holidays’.
Hopefully this is a story of hope and not a lecture. There are many things we can do, and help friends do.
Saving money, saving our friends from feeling obligated, helping the Earth, and making our young friends’ and families’ future lives better: that’s a pretty good gift.
By Sean James
Owner of Sean James Consulting & Design – An eco-friendly landscape company
www.seanjames-consulting.ca
Follow Sean James on:
Sean James is part of these organizations:
And finally, consider supporting what we do by subscribing to us on 