CHRISTMAS TREES

You choose your tree and we cut it for you and move it to your vehicle. If you want to choose your tree and wait a couple of weeks before you cut it, that's OK too! We'll hang a tag on the tree and you can come back later on. We ask that pre-tagged trees be paid for at the time of selection.

We will be open beginning the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. throughout the weekend. We're also open the next two weekends from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. During the week days, we ask that you make an appointment.

In addition to quality fresh Christmas trees, we provide you with a tree disposal bag and coloring books and candy for the kids. Bring your camera and we'll take your family holiday photo!

Tree Quote
"He who plants a tree, plants a hope."
Lucy Larcom

Tree Quote
"In the woods we return to reason and faith."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Price List for Landscape and Christmas Trees and Wreaths (back to top of page)
• Landscape Trees - $10 per foot
  
• Christmas Trees - Generally run $5 per foot (Range from $25-$60 depending upon type and shape of tree - spruce and fir trees are higher and pine trees are less)
  
• Wreaths - $24 (+Nebraska sales tax)

Tree Quote
"To exist as a nation, to prosper as a state, and to live as a people, we must have trees."
Teddy Roosevelt

Tree Planting and Maintenance Tips (back to top of page)
1. Select the right tree for the right place. Check out the mature height and width of the tree you are planting and make sure there is room for it to grow. A little spruce seedling can grow upwards of 100 feet tall, so make room.
2. Choose trees in the nursery that look healthy. Don't pick deciduous trees that have been pruned two thirds of the way up their main stems to look like miniature versions of the mature model. For young trees, the more branches and leaves the better the tree's ability to produce food and establish roots. You can always prune them back to look perfect once the tree is established.
3. Prepare bareroot trees for planting by soaking their roots in water for 3-6 hours. Don't plant with packing material still clinging to the roots.
4. Plant all trees, bareroot, containerized or potted, at the depth they stood in the nursery. Trees planted too deep have more health problems later on than trees planted too shallow.
5. Dig a hole wider than seems necessary, usually two and a half times the width of the roots or root ball. Remove other tree roots, grass or sod and sticks from the area or hole. Loosen the soil in the bottom of the hole.
6. Gently pack soil around the roots of the tree as you fill in the soil. It should be firmly, but not tightly packed. Build a little water saving basin with soil around the tree trunk.
7. Slowly soak the tree by watering enough to fill the soil profile where the tree roots will grow. Repeat watering as needed during dry weather to establish the tree. During extreme heat, it may be necessary to sprinkle water on the leaves or needles of the tree until roots are established.
8. Usually, no soil amendments or fertilizers are necessary. They often cause more harm than good and can burn tree roots during hot weather.
9. Mulch around the tree with porous weed barrier and/or organic materials like wood chips. Grass clippings aren't the best mulch because they usually carry high nitrogen levels from turf fertilization and they often seal off new moisture from soaking through to the roots. Stay away from rocks, especially white rock, unless its in an extremely decorative landscaped spot. White rock often reflects sunlight that can harm trees.
10. Mulch serves many purposes including keeping lawnmowers and weed eaters away from trees, slowing the heating of the soil in the spring and cooling in the winter to allow the tree to prepare itself for changing seasonal extremes, holding moisture and suppressing weed pressure.
11. Prune damaged limbs immediately. Always prune at the branch collar. Never top a tree, flush cut or leave a stub that can become diseased. Never prune more than one third of the tree foliage in a given season.
12. Staking trees is often unnecessary. Leaving the stakes off generally allows the tree to bend with the wind and strengthens tree trunks. However, if you need to stake a young tree in an exposed windy place, stake fairly low on the trunk to prevent wind from shifting the root ball of the tree and make sure guide lines are loose enough to allow the tree to sway. Use twine, ribbon or other soft materials as guide lines and never leave the lines on the tree for more than one season.
13. If you must fertilize and put weed killer on your lawn, stay several feet away from your trees. Many deciduous trees, especially Hackberry, cannot withstand high chemical rates in their roots and will eventually die after years of continued exposure to chemicals.

Tree Quote
"Holy Mother Earth, the trees and all nature are witnesses of your thoughts and deeds."
Winnebago Saying

Choosing and Caring for your Real Christmas Tree (back to top of page)
1. If you are choosing a tree in a retail lot, always check the needles for freshness. Do the needles pull out easily? Has the tree needles and trunk been painted with a green dye?
2. When choosing a tree from a choose and cut lot like ours, the same rules apply. However, most often trees that are growing in a field are naturally fresh unless we've had extreme drought conditions.
3. Always look over the shape and size of the tree. Some people need a flat side so they can place the tree in a corner. Trees normally appear smaller in the field than they do once they are placed in a stand and in your living room.
4. Know your trees ahead of time. If you have little children, we wouldn't recommend a Colorado Blue Spruce because their needles are extremely sharp. Black Hills Spruce and all the pines are friendly to little fingers.
5. Check the trunk to make sure it isn't so crooked or bent that it won't fit into your tree stand. Many modern stands are pretty forgiving, but it still is good policy to look before we cut.
6. Once we've cut your tree and shook all the dry needles out of the center of the tree, (Pine trees normally lose one third of their inner needles every year) strap it into your vehicle snugly.
7. When you arrive home, make a fresh cut of about one quarter to one half inch on the trunk and place tree immediately in water either in a bucket or in your tree stand. Trees "heal or sap over" in about twenty minutes, so if you don't make a fresh cut, it won't absorb water in the stand like it should. If you make a fresh cut, you don't need to drill a hole in the trunk, add aspirin, warm water or green dye. Just keep the stand full of clean water and the tree will actually green up and stay green for several weeks.
8. Always maintain your Christmas lights and make sure they are not frayed. Check plug-ins regularly and never let the lights on while you are away.
9. Keep the tree stand full of water. It will take lots of water…gallons…during the first few days you have your tree in the house. Never neglect to water the tree. It is still a living thing and requires moisture.
10. Use the disposal bag we send along with you to remove the tree after the holidays. You can limb up the tree and use branches for mulch. You can cut off some of the branches and use others to hang bird feeders or orange slices for the birds. The tree limbs will often remain green for a month or longer if the tree is placed in a snow bank.

Tree Quote
"The best friend on earth of man is the tree."
Frank Lloyd Wright

When Julius Sterling Morton moved to Nebraska Territory in 1854 from Michigan, the young man and his wife, lovers of trees, missed the forests of their home state. As they established their home in the budding town of Nebraska City, they planted trees, orchards, shrubs and flowers to feel at home on the prairie.
Morton, who became editor of Nebraska's first newspaper and one of the best stump speakers among early politicians of the territory, proposed the idea of a special day dedicated to planting trees. He gave his "Fruit Address" in January 1872 to the state horticultural society and again to the State Board of Agriculture, touting the idea of the tree planting day.
The Board declared Apr. 10, 1872 as the first Arbor Day set aside to "plant trees, both forest and fruit". While the 800 trees Morton ordered to plant on the first Arbor Day didn't arrive in time keeping the author of the holiday from partaking in the plantings he proposed, over a million trees were planted in Nebraska on that first Arbor Day.
For many years, Arbor Day was celebrated on Morton's birthday, Apr. 22, but was later moved in Nebraska and South Dakota to the last Friday in April. Southern states celebrate earlier and northern states well into May.
Morton went on to serve as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture in the cabinet of President Grover Cleveland. A solid believer in the gold standard of currency, this fiscal conservative ran a tight ship of efficiency as head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Cleveland later visited the Morton's at their mansion in Nebraska City, Arbor Lodge.
While Morton was in Washington, D.C. serving the cabinet and while he was away throughout his formative political years running for governor of the state or other political office, his wife Caroline and his children maintained tree plantings around Arbor Lodge with diligence.
Morton was known to be determined in his opinions, whether over Civil War politics or the planting of trees. When Nebraska Governor Robert Furnas, another tree planter, mentioned to Morton that Eastern White Pine trees wouldn't survive in Nebraska, Morton planted thousands of them to prove him wrong. Morton's pines did survive until many succumbed to drought during the 1930's. They were however replanted and visitors to Arbor Lodge can still enjoy white pines when they walk the tree trail around the mansion.
The Morton home, developed finally by the Morton children, and the farm around the home is now part of a State Historical Park operated by Nebraska Game and Parks Commission. The home is open to the public and features many elegant rooms that remain as they were when Morton lived there.
The Morton orchards are now part of Arbor Day Farm that includes the National Arbor Day Foundation headquarters at the Lied Conference Center. Now Arbor Day is celebrated in every state in the Union and hundreds of other countries in various fashions. As Morton put it, "The cultivation of flowers and trees is the cultivation of the good, the beautiful, and the ennobling in man."

Tree Quote
"Arbor Day is not like other holidays. Each of those reposes on the past, while Arbor Day proposes for the future."
J. Sterling Morton, Arbor Day founder

National Arbor Day Foundation - www.arborday.org
Keep America Beautiful - www.kab.org
International Society of Arborculture - www.isa.arbor.com
Project Learning Tree - www.plt.org
USDA Forest Service - www.fs.fed.us
Nebraska Forest Service - www.nfs.unl.edu/index.htm
Nebraska National Forest - www.fs.fed.us/r2/nebraska
Nebraska Statewide Arboretum - www.arboretum.unl.edu
American Forests - www.americanforests.com
Arbor Day Farm - www.adflcc.com
Captain Jack's Tree Farm Locator www.christmas-tree.org

Tree Quote
"Each generation takes the earth as trustees. We ought to bequeath to posterity as many forests and orchards as we have exhausted and consumed."
J. Sterling Morton