Christmas Tree Vendors Find It Lonely On The Lot This Year

They won’t be home for Christmas.

They won’t stand loaded with tinsel next to a crackling fire or in front of a picture window with flashing lights wrapped lovingly in their branches.

This year hundreds of Christmas trees in Spokane and North Idaho are headed to shredders.

Instead of doling out evergreens to eager customers, Phillip Garcia at Kevin Budig’s Holiday Trees on North Division spent a crisp Monday trying to unload his trees at $10 apiece while piling up the rest to be turned into bark.

Like many other tree vendors, Garcia is a victim of abundance: Too many trees. “This is one of the worst years I’ve seen,” he said.

Many in the tree business blame the meager market on the new crop of salespeople.

“Every two or three years a bunch of people get in the business and overflood the market,” said Chad Stark, owner of Spokane Boys Hardware and Garden. “The same thing happened with fruit stands this summer.”

Stark usually sells about 90 percent of the 3,000 trees he brings into the Spokane market. This year his sales are down and he’ll have more than usual left over, he said.

“It’s part of the business,” he said. “You’ve got to take the good with the bad.”

On North Monroe, tucked against the hillside, Richard Bagwell’s first try at a tree stand is a success. He’s found a business selling the firs he harvested from family property north of Spokane.

“It’s turning out to be kind of fun,” he said. He thinks he’s done well because he’s gone a different route than the major lots. Where most stores and nurseries buy their stock from commercial farms, he cut his costs by using family land.

And he’s got very little overhead. A few lights, some plastic tarps and a camper are all he needs to run the business.

“With the large lots, you’re dealing with bigger money,” he said. “We’re trying to keep on the low end of everything.”

The flood of firs and tree lots also has branched to Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene, where many lots are still packed with foliage.

Tidyman’s on Highway 95 has sold 650 trees this year, 100 fewer than last year. That’s because there are many more choices for customers, vendors say.

At this time last year, good trees were hard to find. People combed the streets, sometimes driving out of town seeking any open lot with a few scraggly leftovers.

Vendors have dropped prices to catch customers.

Garcia is charging $10 for the same trees he sold last year for $25. “It’s just a really really risky business,” he said, shaking his head. “With the market so bad, it’s costing us more money to stay open than we’re earning.”

, DataTimes