Ready for Christmas? Christmas trees will cost more this year

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Natural Christmas trees are likely to cost about 10 percent more this holiday season because of rising production costs and tight supplies of farm-grown trees, according to industry estimates.
“This year, they’re going to go up,” said Tim O’Connor, executive director of the National Christmas Tree Association, a trade group for growers.
The typical price for a cut evergreen was about $70 last year, the association said, based on an online survey in January of about 2,000 adults who bought trees during the 2021 season. A 10 percent increase — the association’s “best estimate,” Mr. O’Connor said, since the group doesn’t play a role in setting prices — would push the typical cost closer to $80 this year.
But he cautioned that predicting how much trees will cost on retail lots is a challenge. Christmas trees are often sold at small farms and pop-up lots, and reporting can be inconsistent. So reliable industry data is scant, he said.
Nearly three-quarters of tree growers said their wholesale prices would probably be 5 to 15 percent higher than last year, according to a separate poll of 55 growers by the recently renamed Real Christmas Tree Board, a grower-funded group that promotes natural trees and is overseen by the Department of Agriculture.
Growers faced higher costs for fertilizer, fuel and other supplies, which affect retail prices, said Jill Sidebottom, a seasonal spokeswoman for the National Christmas Tree Association.
Plus, supplies of cut trees have been constrained for years, partly as a result of reduced plantings starting more than a decade ago. It takes five to 15 years of growth before trees are tall enough to be harvested, she said.
“We do anticipate a tight supply of trees,” she said, “probably for another couple of years.”
But the Real Christmas Tree Board’s research found that most shoppers had “no problems” finding a place nearby to buy a tree last year, said Marsha Gray, the executive director of the board. “We expect this year to be no different,” she said.