COUNTRY SKILLS: Keep A Living Christmas Tree

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Root Pruning

If the live tree experiment has been a success, you can transplant more young trees out from the woods and establish a small Christmas tree plantation. To ease the transition into the house and back—for both you and the tree—prune the roots over several years so they end up concentrating into a small, easily dugup clump. You can root prune in the woods or transplant trees into the sun and cut both top and roots to size there.

The first fall, after trees go dor mant, cut the soil around each tree a good foot deep in a circle just out side the tree's drip line. The tree will replace cutoff roots inside the circle. The year after, cut a circle some six inches far ther in. Next year, cut still another slit trench farther in till each tree is concen trating root growth in an easily removed root ball about a foot and a half to two feet across and as much deep. I like to soak the soil around ends of just-pruned roots with dilute liquid fertilizer so the newly truncated roots will have a good meal. It will also ease their shock when they awake from dormancy and find their number reduced by half.

Top Pruning

Except for removing diseased and dead wood, don't prune a tree still in the woods—not even wildly errant limbs. In the dense shade, a tree needs all its foliage to soak up what sun it can get. However, for a tree's first Christmas visit—and annually after it is planted in the sun—you will want to top prune each tree into a Christmas conical shape. Few will make much new growth the year after transplanting, but once they have produced a crop of bright green new growth (and they'll do it any time of year, sometimes several times a year—not just in spring), you should reduce it all around by about half or as needed to reach an even cone shape. In particular, trim the long central spike that will extend forest-grown legginess into succeeding branch whorls—but watch that it doesn't split into a "Y" just be low the tip and try to grow a dual tree trunk.

You can try to dig up and replant a single tree every year, but it will lose vigor and die in time. You are best off rescuing several from the woods and revolving their tours of Christmas duty-bringing in the most vigorous each December. Three to five trees should suffice, with a new one added and an older one retired each year. 'they won't mind being kept pruned down to acceptable indoor size for five years or so.

Cutting off the Stump

Not all Christmas tree farmers plow the land and plant seedlings for eventual harvest. Some old-timers don't kill their trees at all, but cut "off the stump," removing second growth from established trees originally cut high enough above the butt that several strong, living branches were left on the tall stump. One or more of the surviving limbs will become leaders, arching skyward at the break from dormancy in the spring. The leaders will grow to tree size rapidly, benefiting from a mature root system.

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