I know, I know, it’s December so you’re being inundated with Christmas stuff. Well, I’m here to…inundate you a little more! I noticed that a lot of folks had started putting up their trees this past weekend, mostly fake trees, but trees nonetheless. Some folks do get their real trees up as early as possible and keep them up as long as they can, but how do they do it? Well, Popular Science has some tips for keeping your real tree looking good for as long as possible. I’ve posted some of the tips below, but follow the link here for the full article!
- Turn down the thermostat. Keeping the tree in a cool room will extend its life by reducing how much water it loses.
- Test-drive trees before you buy. Run a branch through your closed hand to ensure the needles stay on and flex the branches to ensure they’re pliable.
- Keep an eye out for red flags. If you detect discolored or overly brittle foliage, wrinkled bark or a musty odor, keep walking.
- Measure the width of the tree’s base. Live trees need a stand that can hold one quart of water for each inch of the trunk’s diameter. So a tree with a two-inch trunk diameter needs a stand that can hold at least two quarts of water.
- Wrap trees before driving them home on top of your car. Winter winds can quickly dry trees out.
- Saw off the trunk’s bottom inch before you put it in your stand. Just like trimming a blossom’s stem before you stick it in a vase, removing the bottom inch of a Christmas tree’s trunk gets rid of stopped-up vessels and will allow the tree to drink water freely.