Still need a Christmas tree? Options are limited and running out fast

If you’re still looking for a Christmas tree, you better hurry up, or at least that’s what the owners of Christmas tree lots in the Sioux Falls area say.

The past several years, drought has made the holiday staple in short supply. Weather conditions have been too dry and hot for many trees to receive the moisture they need, and as a result, there have been less trees. And most of them are smaller than usual.

But demand for trees is still high, so there aren’t many more chances to pick out a tree in Sioux Falls.

“At the rate that it’s going, we’re probably going to be sold out by Sunday,” Kevin Baumgartner said Monday. Baumgartner is the co-owner of Baumgartner's Family Christmas Trees.

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As of Monday, Baumgartner's had already sold about 75% of their inventory, he said.

“We’re trying to make some phone calls to find more pre-cut trees, but there really aren’t any to be had anywhere,” Baumgartner said.

Popular sizes, which are those in the 8- to 11-foot range, are already gone, and Fraser Firs have been very hard to find, he said.

People still looking for trees just may not get the tree of their choice and will likely have to settle for something smaller than hoped for. The lot still has a few hundred trees in the 5- to 6.5-foot range, Baumgartner said.

This year, at least, the supply is slightly better than what it was last year for Baumgartner.

Part of the reason Baumgartner’s shortage was bad in the first place was because a main supplier was bought out by a larger company a few years ago, and the new company cut down nearly 300 acres of trees.

“We were scrambling for about 1,000 trees that year,” he said.

While a lot of the trees in Wisconsin have been replanted, he added, it will still take a few years for them to reach normal size again.

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At the start of this season, Baumgartner's was about 400 trees short.

"I love the uniqueness of a real tree," said Patty McKenna, who was shopping for a Christmas tree at Baumgartner's. "But there's just hardly anything anymore."

In general, the Christmas tree industry takes about a decade to recover from a small growing year, said Todd Gannon at Riverview Christmas Tree Farm. Riverview grows and sells its own trees in Canton.

“We’re actually still trying to work through a loss of seedlings from 2012,” he said, noting there was a drought then, too.

“Then the last couple summers have been two of the driest on record in South Dakota. Even across the country, we have not been getting the growth that we’d like to see out of the trees. Oftentimes, irrigation is just enough to keep them alive, it’s just so hot and dry.”

Riverview has about 400 trees left this season from the 1,200 they tagged for sale, but like Baumgartner, Gannon is anticipating closing down for the season after this weekend.

Three years ago, Riverview had 1,600 trees for sale. In 2020, they had 1,200, and last year they had about 1,000.

“We’re kind of climbing out of the hole,” Gannon said. “It feels like industry-wide, this year might be the roughest year across the U.S., … but for our farm personally, maybe we’re a year ahead of the curve.”

Gannon said part of the reason might be because the Black Hills Spruce has done really well.

“They’re a very hardy tree but are also slow growing,” he said. So while it might take 7 or 8 years for a different tree species to mature, it would take a spruce 10 or more.

Both Gannon and Baumgartner are hopeful things will continue to get better in the next couple of years, but it’s hard to say what things will look like in another decade.

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Baumgartner also wanted to remind people that most types of tree, such as the Balsams, are three-week trees. He recommends storing the tree in a cool, dark area and keeping it watered before putting it up so it will last until Christmas.

“If you pick your tree up early, you don’t necessarily have to set it up early,” Baumgartner said.

“The nice part is Christmas trees are still in demand,” Gannon said. “And making it a fun tradition to cut down your own tree as a family is all part of the experience. But if you’re still looking for a tree, make sure you have an open mind to what you think is the ‘perfect’ tree, because your options are more limited.”

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Christmas trees in Sioux Falls are limited, running out fast