What Does It Take to Grow the Perfect Christmas Tree?

This is more than just a place to buy a tree. It’s an experience.
Originally a landscaper, Nicholson dreamt of starting a Christmas tree farm in his hometown, to recreate the emotion he felt as a child when he cut down his own tree for the first time.
“I have that memory seared into my head,” Nicholson said. “There were wild trees growing across the street, so my mom took me and I cut my first tree.” (He also recalled another particularly memorable year when his dad got a 10-foot tree for their seven-foot ceilings—“so rather than cut three feet off the bottom, he cut three feet off the top,” he said. This did not sit well with Mom.)
Nicholon started the farm in 1999, and his friend and partner Suzanne Bayon deNeufville provided the land and funding. But since it takes about eight years for a tree to grow to maturity, the business didn’t have a product to sell for a long time.
“I had a lot of faith,” he said. “You have to believe in nature and time.”
Sadly, his partner, having fought a long battle with lung cancer, didn’t live to see the first tree sold. She left him with a request.
“She said, ‘I vouched for you with my family, but my days are coming to an end. Please follow through, and don’t forget it’s about the children. Keep it real and authentic,’” Nicholson said.
He agreed. The land remains in her trust.
“We try to keep it super simple and old-fashioned, and I think that’s why we get an incredible response,” he said. In addition to cut-your-own trees, the farm offers hayrides, a firepit and snack bar, honey from its own hives, and a “Santa Expedition” where kids can take a wagon out to visit the man himself.
“People think you plant them and they grow. And that’s just not the case,” he said.
February through April is planting season, with trees planted by hand. He estimates he loses 30 to 40 percent of the seedlings he puts in, mostly due to the weather.
That’s followed by the summer “shearing season,” which is labor-intensive. “Every single one of the trees we have has to be trimmed and shaped up so that you grow a tighter, denser tree. And we do that with hand clippers,” Nicholson said. Imagine doing that more than 30,000 times, every year. Outside the holiday season, he only has two employees. When Christmas rolls around, the staff grows to about 25.
“It’s taught me an incredible lesson about patience,” he said. “It’s taken me 20 to 25 years to grow consistently nice trees.”
So while he loves his career, he’s not worried it will be lost to any competition: “I have great job security because I don’t think anyone would be crazy enough to go into this.”
As for choosing the “perfect” tree, it all depends on your point of view.
“Everyone who leaves here thinks they got the perfect tree,” he said. And that’s what makes all his hard work worthwhile.
“I still get chills when I see a family with a tree they put on their car. It’s an incredible feeling, knowing I worked on that tree for eight or nine years. I sheared it eight or nine times. That’s when I get my satisfaction.”
The kids he hires during the holiday season often visit just to say hi. “To see them come back when they’re getting married, or having a baby, that’s really when you know it’s a wonderful place,” he said.
It’s a romantic spot as well; the picturesque setting makes it a hot spot for engagements.
In the spirit of the season, Nicholson chooses a charity each year to donate free trees to, keeping an eye out for a local need. A few years ago, when he discovered the nearby city of Newark didn’t have a single Christmas tree lot, he took 200 trees and had a giveaway. “I pulled up to Newark City Hall, and there was a line of people stretching four blocks in 10-degree weather—people who would not have gotten a Christmas tree,” he said.
Nicholson has passed his love of Christmas to his daughter, Emma, who won first place in the annual New Jersey Christmas Tree Growers contest for tabletop trees when she was 8. Now 17, Emma shared her father’s view of what trees can mean to families.
“Christmas has always been my holiday. So many people all have a piece of my family in their house,” she said. It also turns out that having a dad who owns a Christmas tree farm makes you popular with the other students. “I’ve always felt like a celebrity at school; everyone knew me.”
She shared a story that taught her a valuable lesson about charity. A woman had chosen a tree but had forgotten her wallet and checkbook. She promised Emma’s father a check would be in the mail, so he let her take the tree. When several days passed without the arrival of a check, he got discouraged. But it finally showed up a month after the holidays with an apology that the woman had simply forgotten.
“It taught me not to lose hope and not to stop giving people breaks because someone wronged you,” Emma said.
In that case, the spirit of giving lasted long after the holiday season. It’s stories like these that make Nicholson’s job special—and they’re the Christmas gift he receives every year.