Finding the Perfect Christmas Tree in Portland, Oregon

You don’t have to go far to find the perfect Christmas Tree in Portland, Oregon. Oregon is the leading producer of Christmas trees with 8.3 million trees harvested in 2001. In fact, one of the greatest things about buying a Christmas Tree in Oregon is that you can go directly to a Christmas tree farm and pick out your tree and cut it down!

This may sound like a little too much work for some people, but it’s a fun Christmas time activity for the whole family to enjoy. It especially helps if at least a few of the family members are strong enough to help carry the tree back to the car.

Popular tree varieties in the Portland area include Grand Fir, Scotch Pine, Douglass Fir and Noble Fir. Personally, my favorite is the noble fir with it’s bluish silver needles and evenly spaced branches that let dangling ornaments hang perfectly, it just doesn’t seem like Christmas without a Noble Fir.

The Noble Fir is the most expensive of the Christmas tree varieties. One of the reasons for this is that grooming a Noble Fir takes more time and effort than grooming other kinds of trees. I was once told by a Christmas tree grower that grooming a Noble Fir, so that it looks conical shaped, is similar to giving a layered style hair cut. Whereas with other trees, it’s like taking the clippers and giving a buzz cut. The Noble Fir cannot be simply buzzed with clippers into a cone shape. Branches have to be cut back one or two at a time and it’s just more labor intensive.

Just before Thanksgiving, lots of signs start popping up pointing the direction to the nearest u-cut tree farm. Some tree farms have gift shops with lots of fun Christmas items to buy; others focus only on trees. Most tree farms will have a baler available to tie up your tree like a folded-up umbrella for a few extra dollars. This makes it much easier to tie the tree to the top of your car.

Here are just a few of the many Christmas Tree farms in the West Portland area: