Green guests

• Live trees visit for the holidays, then go back where they belong

By Rebecca Ragain for Pamplin Media Group

Pamplin Media Group, Nov 13, 2007, Updated Oct 30, 2009

L.E. BASKOW / PAMPLIN MEDIA GROUP

Zac Perry and Caroline Petrich with dog Dakota check out the growth of a Douglas fir at Reed College. As an alumnus of the Original Living Christmas Tree Co., the fir once spent the holidays indoors before being replanted.

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As a letter carrier going about her daily route, Diane Wack gets a good look at the Christmas trees that people toss in their front yards after the holiday season has passed.

“It’s really an eyesore,” she says.

So when Wack learned that she could rent a living conifer for Christmas, and that it would be planted in a green space after the holidays, she thought it was a wonderful idea.

That was more than 10 years ago. Wack now is one of the most long-term of the customers of the Original Living Christmas Tree Co., or TOLCTC for short. Wack’s 13-year-old daughter barely remembers a Christmas when the family didn’t have a living tree.

This year marks the 16th season that the company will rent living Christmas trees – with their burlap-wrapped root balls tucked into nursery pots – to Portland residents.

As far as founder John Fogel knows, this tree rental business is unique to Portland, with the exception of a two-year-old program run by the San Francisco Department of the Environment, which was inspired by TOLCTC.

Renting a tree is easy. That’s part of the appeal. For $75 ($65 if you ordered before Halloween), close-in customers can have a tree delivered to their door by Dec. 14. Trees range in size from 5 1/2 to 7 1/2 tall.

Customers can choose from Douglas fir, Fraser fir, Nordman fir, balsam fir, Serbian spruce and Scotch pine, which Fogel selects from local nurseries.

This year, the company also will offer some trees for customers to pick up on one day only, Dec. 11. The trees for pickup are 5 1/2 to 6 feet tall, including the pot and cost $65, with a separate $15 deposit check required.

A living tree has a unique silhouette: somewhere between the untamed shape of a wild forest tree and the typical precut Christmas tree, which is heavily pruned for that perfect cone shape.

“They’re nice trees. They’re characters,” says Caroline Petrich, who has been renting living trees for about 13 years. “People who come to our house for the holidays look forward to seeing what the trees are going to look like.”

Rental customers agree to care for the rental tree during the 18 days it is in their home. The tree’s needs are simple: Sufficient water, and not too much direct heat, are the main considerations.

A living Christmas tree serves much the same function as a cut tree, bringing the smell and sight of nature indoors. It can be trimmed just as elaborately – as long as care is taken not to overheat the tree and not to add anything that can’t be removed at the end.

But TOLCTC tree rental customers feel that bringing a live tree into their homes adds something to their holiday that plastic or cut trees don’t.

“It’s just nice to have an actual, living tree in your midst,” Wack says.

Petrich agrees: “Every time the tree is delivered, I feel like I’m welcoming the first guest for the holiday. It has a presence.”

Tree rental customers also like the fact that their Christmas tree will be picked up after the holidays so they don’t have to worry about disposal.

So far, more than 2,000 trees have gone into the ground – instead of the yard-waste bin or the trash – through the work of TOLCTC.

Lining up planters for the trees is the first task that company founder Fogel, 42, tackles when he ramps up the business each year. The number of planters he can find determines how many trees he will rent out that season, from 30 trees the first year to more than 400 trees a couple of years ago.