Repurpose Christmas Trees

Christmas trees are excellent winter bird and small animal sanctuaries. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Repurpose Christmas Trees

When I used to write a weekly column carried in several Missouri newspapers, one of the readers took my repurposing Christmas tree advice but complained her artificial tree wasn’t decomposing. Let me make it clear here, when I am talking about repurposing Christmas trees, this is about those live trees that have been cut and those in pots that aren’t making it.

Although it’s a nice idea to think you can buy a potted live Christmas tree, many don’t make it through the move inside and then back outside. You can also repurpose those trees once you move them outside.

How to Repurpose Christmas Trees

Once all ornaments and lights have been removed, there are many things you can do with the Christmas tree in your garden:

1. Place tree in a garden corner for a sanctuary for birds. Birds will use the branches for cover during windy, snowy days.

2. Cut up the tree and use the branches to protect rose bushes.

3. You can also use the cut up branches as mulch at the back of flower beds.

4. Those cut up tree branches can also be formed into a door wreath.

5. If you like the smell of the evergreens, pull off a handful and place in a bowl of water; they will last another couple of weeks if you refresh the water.

6. If you have a compost pile, add the tree to the pile. It will biodegrade by spring.

7. The branches can also be used as natural stakes. I collect cedar boughs to cover cattle panel arbors and to make teepee plant supports.

8. If you have a pond, place the tree at the edge for a safe spot for birds to land to drink.

9. If your pond is deep enough, Christmas trees make nice cover for baby fish later in spring.

10. If you have cows and goats, give them small amounts of the untreated, unadorned tree branches to eat. They have natural Vitamin C and they also work as a natural de-wormer.

Recycling a Christmas Tree

Many communities offer a drop off spot where you can take a Christmas tree. In our mid-Missouri community, our recycling center accepts trees that will get ground up in a wood chipper into mulch.

Dried branches and hunks of trunk will make fabulous firewood for an outdoor fire pit or bonfire, but be sure to keep the fire outside. When Christmas trees burn, they release creosote, a highly flammable, toxic substance consisting mainly of tar -- into the fire smoke. Creosote may build up on the inside of your chimney, increasing your risk of a chimney fire.

If you are a beekeeper, Christmas trees can also be used as handy windbreaks in front of bee hives.

Christmas trees can also be used as bee hive windbreaks. (Photo by Charlotte Ekker Wiggins)

Check with your local home and garden centers. Some will give their extra Christmas trees away after the holidays.

Charlotte

Recycle Cut Christmas Trees

Some of the cut Christmas trees left at Rolla Recycling Center to become mulch.

Recycle Cut Christmas Trees

Some friends are finally taking down their fresh cut Christmas trees and tossing them into garbage piles. That's a shame because these trees can easily be recycled and keep contributing in a variety of ways through the rest of winter.

The following are seven ways cut Christmas trees can be used now that all ornaments, lights, tinsel and cats have been removed:

1. Cut branches off and pile them into a small teepee shape at the corner of your property for wildlife refugees. I keep several piles around my one-acre hillside and keep them "refreshed" with twigs and other cover through the seasons so wildlife have a protected hiding space. In spring, it's fun to see what comes out of those refuges. Last spring, I saw a number of rabbits making the wildlife piles home.

2. Cut Christmas trees also make good bird cover under bird feeders. If you don't like having a whole tree at a bird feeder, cut off branches and use the branches to provide a green safe space at the foot of a bird feeder. 

3. Better yet, use the cut Christmas tree as a bird feeder. Place the tree up against a post or tie it to another tree and add orange slices, strung popcorn, old cranberries and even a bird feeder to give birds a safe place to eat. One of the most beautiful garden sights in snow is to see red cardinal birds in the evergreen branches of a cut Christmas tree!

4. Striped Christmas tree trunks can be set aside to weather and then used as fence posts and bird feeder poles.

Chipped trees and donated branches become a gardener's dream, a pile of potential mulch!

5. Donate your cut Christmas tree to your local recycling center. The Rolla Recycling Center collects trees and chips them up into huge mulch piles that sit through the rest of winter waiting for spring. When weather warms up, residents can stop by on Wednesdays to have the loader fill their pick-ups and trailers with the chipped wood for garden mulch.

The mulch is also available the rest of the week but you have to shovel your own so Wednesdays become a popular day to visit the recycling center.

6. Tie a weight on the cut Christmas tree and sink it in your ponds for fish cover. Evergreen trees make good cover for baby fish as well as providing safe hiding spaces for larger fish trying to get away from predators.

7. Two years ago, a local garden center was giving away their cut Christmas trees so I picked several up and used them for a wind break around my honeybee hives.

Cut Christmas trees also make good wind breaks around honeybee hives facing the south.

In the photo I have the trees pulled away from hive entrances so the honeybees can easily take their winter cleansing flights. As soon as the temperatures dropped to make them cluster back inside the hives, I moved the cut Christmas trees back in front of the hives for a wind break.

Here's a closer look of one of my hives with bees taking cleansing flights.

It takes a while for evergreen trees to dry out, even if they aren't placed in water so you have about half a year of good use before the branches become brittle.

Charlotte