For a lot of people who celebrate Christmas, having a Christmas tree in their home is a yearly tradition. Historically, this practice has been carried out by people chopping down their own trees or visiting a local tree farm to purchase a tree. Today, depending on where an individual resides, they may have the option to rent a living Christmas tree. In Colorado, however, it may be a while before this option is available.
Monica Hudson is the owner of Rent a Living Christmas Tree, or RLCT, a business located in Central California which offers Christmas tree rental services. She founded RLCT in 2009 and, every year since, she and her team of workers have taken online tree orders during the holiday season, delivered Christmas trees to people in the area and picked them up after the holiday.
“(Our customers) order Christmas trees online, tell us when and where to deliver it and it shows up on their doorstep,” Hudson said, “then they put it back out on their doorstep 30 days later and we come and pick it up. It’s the ultimate way to get a beautiful tree that doesn’t die in your house because it’s not a cut-down tree.”
Hudson spends the entire year nurturing trees of all kinds, shapes and sizes in preparation for the Christmas season.
What makes RLCT’s business model unique is that, in contrast to traditional Christmas trees which have been cut down and are therefore dead, RLCT delivers potted and thus living Christmas trees to its customers.
According to Hudson, renting a living Christmas tree is better than purchasing a dead one because, firstly, living trees won’t shed as much in the home.
Secondly, living trees won’t be burned or go in the garbage after the Christmas season passes — instead, they will return to the nursery where Hudson will take care of them until they’re rented again next year. Thus, the practice is better for the environment.
Finally, a lot of RLCT’s customers order the same tree every year which makes people feel like the tree is a part of their family, Hudson said, and, as a result, they take better care of the tree.
While the benefits are abundant, renting living Christmas trees also requires more work on behalf of RLCT’s customers, who sign an agreement that says they will take care of the tree.
“In the process of renting, (our customers) sign an agreement that says ‘if the tree comes back and it’s not in the same condition — which is healthy and happy — then they are liable for the tree,’” Hudson said. “If the tree doesn’t come back in that condition, there is an amount they owe depending on the size of the tree. It can range from $100 to $300 for the cost of the tree.”
Not taking care of the tree means letting the tree dry out, or putting the tree next to a source of heat, like a heat vent or a fireplace, according to Hudson. When they sign a contract, customers agree they protect the tree from drying out and, in this way, “people get educated on how to take care of trees,” Hudson said.
For Hudson, the service of renting Christmas trees presents risks for the business, she said, based on the fact that the trees themselves are more expensive than the amount they are rented out for, as well as the amount RLCT gets from customers who return the tree in poor condition.
“Even though we would be getting something back from (trees returned in poor condition), it takes us years — up to ten years — to grow a tree that’s seven feet tall,” Hudson said. “If somebody, in just one Christmas, just doesn’t water the tree and it dies, (RLCT) is out more than $300.”
Despite the risks, the rewards for RLCT’s services are substantial.
According to Hudson, only about one percent of the RLCT’s tree rentals within the past 13 years have been returned in a condition that’s worse than when they were delivered. Moreover, she credits her customers' appreciation of and education about the importance of tree health as an accomplishment.
However, the business of offering Christmas tree rentals isn’t for everyone, she said, due to the amount of work it requires as well as the fundamental fact that not all climates are suitable for the business venture.
“(RLCT) is not a money maker — you have to love to do something for the environment, you have to have a little bit of a green thumb and you have to be willing to learn and make mistakes which cost you money,” she said. “It’s a fairly intense operation.”
For Jason Von Eschen, the owner of Creekside Tree Nursery located just east of Bouder, Colorado, renting out Christmas trees hasn’t worked very well when he’s tried it in the past, he said, which is the result of several factors.
For starters, Von Eschen believes, people in Colorado are not as educated as people in California about how to care for trees — a lack of knowledge which results in trees getting returned in poor condition, he said.
“It takes a lot of knowledge (about trees that) you have to impart on the customer and what (Creekside Tree Nursery) has found is the people in our area who are looking for rentals are not looking for the added responsibility yet. I think in places like California, they've gone through that step already and it’s taken years of education,” Von Eschen said.
Today, educating people about the importance of caring for the tree they rent is not something that Von Eschen and other workers at Creekside Tree Nursery have time for during the busy three week Christmas season rush, he said.
“We’re trying to sell trees in three weeks and that’s all we have, so it’s difficult to spend time with people who come in and are like, ‘I want a tree for a couple days and then it’s over,’” Von Eschen said.
In Von Eschen’s experience, the lack of knowledge people have about caring for trees is compounded by people not being educated about the cost of trees — which is another factor that contributes to the failure of tree rental services in Colorado, he said.
When people are accustomed to buying a cut-down tree for a low cost, they think renting a live Christmas tree will be similarly low in price. However, what they don’t understand is that Christmas trees aren’t grown in Colorado, Von Eschen said, which makes them more expensive.
At Creekside Tree Nursery, the average price for a living tree is between $400 and $500, according to Von Eschen. By offering tree rentals for prices which are lower than the full cost … is a tricky process.
“There’s also the complexity of renting something,” Von Eschen said. “With that, you have to have insurance and all these other things in case something happens to the tree — how do you do that with a tree? When I have a line of 200 people on a Saturday and I’m doing all these loan documents with a single person, it’s complicated.”
According to Von Eschen, tree farms and nurseries in states like California may be better suited to offer tree rental services due to the fact that renters have an easier time keeping trees alive in wetter, more humid climates, he said. With Colorado’s dry climate and high elevation, however, “it takes more care to keep (trees) alive, especially in your house.”
Additionally, the style of living in places like California — where people tend to live in more apartment buildings as opposed to single family homes — makes tree delivery and pickup services easier for a tree rental business to sustain than in Colorado, he said.
Although, in the past and today, Creekside Tree Nursery doesn’t see the cost benefit of providing Christmas tree rental services, “it’s not like we’ll never try it again,” Von Eschen said. “It’s just about the education that’s needed (for it to work).”
