Learn About Types of Christmas Trees

Learn About Types of Christmas Trees - as part of the expert series by GeoBeats. Welcome everybody, I am George Richardson, one of the co-owners of Richardson Farm Experience. We have Richardson Christmas Trees and Richardson Adventure Farm. We have over 70 - 80,000 Christmas trees growing on our farm. We have about ten different kinds of trees. Everybody has a different idea in their head about what that perfect Christmas tree looks like, so we like to have lots of variety. This particular tree is the Concolor fir. And we planted this because we heard that George H. Bush, the first George Bush, President Bush, this was his favorite type of Christmas tree. And so we thought it was an interesting tree. And it is becoming more and more popular over the years. It is not a very common tree out there on Christmas tree farms, but it is very, very nice, holds it is needles real well, strong branches, but soft fleshy needles that stay on the tree for a long, long time and have a nice almost citrusy scent to it. This is the Canaan fir, one of the most popular trees that we have right now. This is a relative of the Fraser firs which are very popular in the United States. We do grow some Fraser firs also, but the Canaan fir grows a little better this far north. They are native to North Carolina but they grow very nicely for us. Nice strong branches, soft needles, hold their needles very nicely, very nice scent. And that is the Canaan fir. This is the Blue Spruce. Now, not a lot of people buy a Blue Spruce for Christmas trees, but some people really love them. Beautiful color. Prickly, you have got to be careful when you decorate these things, but they are a very nice looking tree. And some of our customers that buy the Blue Spruce will actually clip out some of the middle branches, put candles on the branches and light them with candles, real candles. This is the Scotch Pine tree. This used to be the most popular variety of Christmas tree in the United States, but lately, I had say the last 5 to 10 years people have been preferring the shorter needle trees, a little more open look. But Scotch pine is still very popular, nice growing trees, strong branches, nice needles, very, very nice trees still. This is the White Pine tree. Beautiful trees, native to this region, nice soft needles, wonderful pine scent, really nice looking trees. Now in the old days people used to think the branches were too soft, they did not hold ornaments, but nowadays these trees, the branches are stonger on those and they are really nice. This type of tree is the Douglas fir. A fir tree, kind of an interesting, it is not quite a citrusy scent but a little different type of scent. A little bit lighter colored. Nice soft needles, but still hold their ornaments real well. A little bit different look of a tree, but very, very nice. The Douglas fir, really nice looking Christmas trees.