Anne Marie Scibelli said she’d love nothing more than to trek to a snow-covered Minnesota farm with her two kids to pick out her family’s Christmas tree.
But she lives in Los Angeles. The closest thing to a tree farm near her home is the balmy sidewalk of her local grocery store.
So Scibelli, 39, went online and found a tree farm near Duluth that will cut her tree, pack it up and ship it to her front door. In a box. Via UPS.
“It’s worth it. It’s a Christmas tree,” she said. “A nice, fresh, Minnesota balsam.”
Minnesota and Wisconsin tree growers have found a growing niche in mail-order trees. The business is small – and the idea runs counter to the bucolic, Currier-and-Ives experience many growers tout for their cut-your-own operations.
But when the customers wanted mail order, the farms found a way.
“I had to fashion a box, go to a box company, find out the shipping requirements,” said Therese Olson of Lowes Creek Tree Farm near Eau Claire, Wis. “It’s not the moneymaking part of our business, but it’s very much appreciated.”
Most of the customers getting mail-order trees from Minnesota and Wisconsin growers live on the coasts or in the South, the farm owners said.
“You can buy ’em from me sent to your door cheaper than you can buy it on the street corner in New York City,” said Lois Hoffbauer, co-owner of NorthlandSent Wreath Co. near Duluth, which sent Scibelli her balsam.
They do most of their business in “choose-and-cut” tree sales but sell about 50 to 75 each year via UPS deliveries, Hoffbauer said.
Scibelli said she has paid as much as $300 for a precut tree in Los Angeles.
“It’s obviously a buyer’s market, and we are challenged in our location,” she said.
Prices for a mail-order tree range from $75 to $150, including delivery, depending on the farm and the type of tree. Fraser firs, known as the Cad illac of Christmas trees, are the priciest.
Not only do many customers find the mail-order trees priced right, they say they are fresher than the ones that often sit for weeks on lots of precut trees.
Clyde Brubaker, of Litchfield, Ill., gets his annual Fraser fir shipped from Lowes Creek near Eau Claire.
“My wife thought I was crazy when I did this the first time,” said Brubaker, an auto dealer. But one whiff of the tree won over his skeptical spouse. “You get a tree that – boom – was cut a day or two ago.”
Shipping requirements limit the size of the tree; the box can be no taller than 7 feet.
And there are other restrictions. One grower said he’d stopped shipping trees out of state after learning about rules designed to limit the spread of pests.
For instance, Minnesota is under quarantine for the pine shoot beetle, according to the state Agriculture Department. If a farm wants to ship pine trees or pine wreaths out of state, it must certify to the receiving state that what it’s sending is pest-free, said Geir Friisoe, director of the plant-protection division of the Agriculture Department.
That restriction would not apply to firs and spruces, Friisoe said.
Similar rules apply to Wisconsin, where Olson says her farm is inspected quarterly.
“I don’t mind, because on this end, I want to make sure my stock is going out correctly,” she said.
And since customers like Brubaker are not able to experience the farm directly, Olson likes to include some personal touches with the box: a handwritten note, perhaps describing what the weather was the day the tree was cut, along with a few candy canes.
“It’s something that everybody looks forward to,” she said.
