Wreaths, garland, and evergreen brush

We use Christmas season to make some extra income here.  Our primary income comes from growing and selling vegetable starts, herbs, and perennial fruits and trees.  But November through December we cut balsam, white spruce, white pine, scotch pine, and cedar boughs. We make wreaths and garland and centerpieces. We sell 40lb bundles of brush to other wreath makers.  We also cultivate 8 acres Christmas trees. It is our last income until May first when we open to the public for plant sales.  My sons enjoy spending time in the woods harvesting.  This year it amounted to about $20,000 of extra sales.  It’s kind of interesting way to glean some extra value from the land.

That sounds absolutely lovely. You've got several great things going up there!

I was curious--you classify the income from the plants used for decorative items as "extra," although you do plan for the harvesting and use of those yields every year? Huh. Perhaps you could also offer wreath-making workshops there for additional income and community awareness. Training local people in that type of skill would be good for them, and the additional income and word spreading about your offerings would be great for the farm!

Wow! That's a lot of conifer branches!

How many acres do you have that you harvest from?  Are they trees that you planted, or an established forest you are taking advantage of ?  Who do you sell your wreathes, etc to- individuals, businesses, or a store?

Scott said, "We sell 40lb bundles of brush to other wreath makers.

Are these local folks or do you ship the 40-pound bundles?

I assume that you are selling Christmas trees and these boughs/brush sometimes are from trimming those trees and others harvests.

Catie George wrote:Wow! That's a lot of conifer branches!

How many acres do you have that you harvest from?  Are they trees that you planted, or an established forest you are taking advantage of ?  Who do you sell your wreathes, etc to- individuals, businesses, or a store?

We have 100 acres of land.  8 acres are managed evergreens that we plant.  A lot of those trees are grown to dig at 7ft and sell to folks that want landscape trees.  Some are for Christmas trees and some are used for brush.  We also harvest from the 80 acres of “Wild forest” that we also manage. We plant about 500 evergreen trees a year.  We sell so many wreaths that we also buy in another 2 ton of balsam from another tree farm that doesn’t have as much deer pressure.   All wreaths are sold retail right from our place.  Mostly to individuals but also to townships and businesses.

Anne Miller wrote:

Scott said, "We sell 40lb bundles of brush to other wreath makers.

Are these local folks or do you ship the 40-pound bundles?

I assume that you are selling Christmas trees and these boughs/brush sometimes are from trimming those trees and others harvests.

We sell the 40lb bundles mostly within 20 miles from our place.  Some pick them up and some we deliver.  We are constantly planting new trees and most of the boughs are cut from larger trees.   We can cut from them for many years  

Some pictures from this year