Tips to keep Christmas tree fresh

It is Christmas tree selection time again. We all love crisp, fresh-smelling trees filling our homes.

As you select your tree, take the whole family to get it. Many of my fondest memories were choosing a Christmas tree.

Besides gracing your home with natural beauty, live trees yield other benefits. They help the earth far beyond Christmas. For every tree harvested from a Christmas tree farm, owners plant three seedlings in its place. In the next six or seven years, while maturing, these trees release oxygen and provide shelter for wildlife. Here are tips for keeping cut trees fresh at home:

• Flocking a tree is not recommended if you recycle it. The glue in the flocking product plugs up the machine used to grind up the trees.

• Once you get the tree home, make a fresh half-inch cut from the base of the trunk. This removes the sap seal formed from when the tree was cut. The tree can then take up water to keep it fresh. If you don't, an air bubble forms and prevents the tree from taking up water and it dries out.

• Place your tree in water immediately, even if you don't decorate it right away. There have been debates on whether to add sugar, aspirin or other solutions to the water to aid in keeping the tree fresh. Tree growers and scientists recommend just using tap water.

• Keep water in the tree stand, never letting it drop below the tree base. Trees absorb about a gallon a day after the cut, and then drink a quart a day through the season.

• Keep the tree away from hot spots such as your fireplace, heater, air ducts or a television set. The added heat saps water out of the tree fast.

• Use lights in good working condition. Before decorating your tree, check them for problems.

• Never leave lights on an unattended tree, especially when you leave home.

• When Christmas is over, remove the excess water from the container with a turkey baster to avoid carpet stains.

• Don't junk it. Recycle the tree.

Considering buying a living Christmas tree? It's a sound ecological alternative to cut trees. It will help our environment and it keeps on giving. The tree increases oxygen and wildlife in your yard, or you can donate it to a park. Aleppo and Mondel pines are the most common species, because they make wonderful shade trees.

Here's what's necessary to keep a live tree fresh before moving it to the yard:

• Select the live tree of your choice.

• Place the root ball in a waterproof container while inside your home to avoid staining the carpet.

• Keep the root ball damp but not soaked.

• Use lights that give off very little heat.

• Never leave lights on longer than necessary. The added heat wakes up the dormant plant.

• After Christmas, plant it in your yard. Prepare its hole now to let the ground mellow.

• Mulch around the tree to conserve water. Water it as needed.

• Avoid staking it to develop a stronger tree.

• Enjoy Christmas 2009 for years to come. Put a plaque at its base noting all involved, as we soon forget.

• Next year, plant another live tree.

PLANT GIVEAWAY

At 10 a.m. Thursday, the Springs Preserve at 333 S. Valley View Blvd. will give away Mojave plants to color your yard. Get there early for the best selection. Here are some they'll feature:

• Turpentine bush is a shining star for Southwest landscapes. Masses of showy, yellow daisylike flowers in the late summer cover its rich green aromatic or turpentine leaves, hence the name turpentine bush.

• Blue yucca, banana yucca or Spanish dagger plants have bluish dagger leaves and are statuesque. The fruit looks like small fat bananas, hence the name banana yucca. Its rigid leaves have prominent curly fibers along them. Native Americans eat the flower, fruit and seeds and use fibers to weave ropes.

• Desert holly, just as the name implies, has holly-shaped silvery leaves that really stand out in landscapes. It gets about knee high and three-feet wide at maturity. It is a beauty.

Linn Mills writes a garden column each Sunday. You can reach him at linn.mills@springspreserve.org or call him at 822-7754.