CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Robin Pierce, of Hickory Ridge Farm in Chesapeake, says she got her trees on Friday. This year they have 500 Fraser firs ranging from 6 to 13 feet tall, a type of Christmas tree Pierce thinks is top-notch.
"They are the cream of the crop as well as trees go and like I said that's why we went with all Fraser Firs this year,"
Pierce says their trees came from North Carolina.
She says she lucked out with getting them this year.
"The North Carolina grower is one of the ones that was affected by the flooding that happened there so we were very fortunate because we had put our order in already," explained Pierce. There were a lot of Christmas tree farms that were highly affected and lost their trees,"
She says the cost is not too different from last year and explained why they've been so costly in recent years.
"What I think happened is COVID and high fuel prices especially two years ago or so really inflated everything and the wholesalers the prices just went very high for us our margin is not that great when it comes to Christmas trees," said Pierce. "Everything got elevated and things are starting to back off a little bit fuel prices are a little bit better but the wholesalers stuck with their higher prices they didn't go backward, but the good news is this year they didn't go up again so our prices are the same as they were last year,"
Last year Pierce says they didn't sell all their trees. She told us that when they don't sell, some animals eat especially well in the winter.
"Honestly, we lose the money on the trees and I end up feeding them to my goats throughout the winter it's a very expensive goat feed is what it comes out to be,"
When asked when was a good time to get a tree, Pierce told us that right now is the perfect time.
"They're going to last you 5-6 weeks but the sooner that you go ahead and get it home with a fresh cut on the trunk and get it into a bucket of water even if you're not ready to put it up for two weeks you're going to be better off going ahead and doing that rather than letting it sit here," said Pierce.
