Useful Tips for Christmas Tree buyers

Keep these essential tips in mind when buying your Christmas tree for this season to avoid disappointment and problems later.

1. At home, measure the height and width of the space that you can spare for your Christmas tree before driving to the retail lot.

2. When buying a tree, check for freshness. Green needles should break crisply when bent. Pick a few needles and bend each in half. For fir trees, each needle should snap cleanly; your fir's too dry if the needles arch without breaking. For pines, it's the opposite: The needles should bend without snapping.

3. Shake and Bump the tree. Lift the tree and then bump the bottom of the trunk onto the ground several times. If a large number of green needles fall out, the tree is deteriorating. This process is also used to shake off the already fallen needles from the branches and is hence not a foolproof way to determine the freshness of the tree.

4. Inspect the sawn stem of the tree. If the stem appears moist and full of sap, the tree is fresh. If the stem is dry, it also may have been bumped on the ground numerous times.

3. Most of a tree's water loss occurs through its needles. When it's time to take your tree home, have the tree baled (wrapped the tree in twine) at the farm, or wrap it in twine yourself. This helps keep it from drying out on the drive home. Before baling it, shake off the needles as mentioned in point 3 above.

4. Make the trip back home easier by facing the cut end of the tree towards the front of your car. This way the branches won't get bent the wrong way as you drive back fighting the wind.

5. Most farms provide rope and twine to secure your tree. If you don't have a luggage rack, thread anchor ropes through your car's open windows.