Where can you buy a Christmas tree now?

In a normal year, I put up the tree on the weekend before the first of December. I always get comments about that, because of the good saint. Secretly, I think people are just jealous of my Christmas tree, because at my home, it's one long stretched-out Christmas. This morning, I read in the Volkskrant that Van Dissel is already busy with Christmas, in a slightly different way. That's why I advocate for an extra early tree. But where do you buy one mid-October?

Here you can buy a Christmas tree in October
At the hardware store, you don't need to knock yet, even though they sell very suitable little trees for indoors from mid-November. Online giant Bol.com, which delivers the real ones, already has quite a few beautiful specimens online, and otherwise, it's mostly fakes. Want to get started with a green net, needles in the car upholstery, and dragging it down the street? Off to the garden center. Intratuin had already set up the Christmas section in September and is already selling all kinds of spruces. A Norway spruce, a silver fir, the Serbian spruce, or would you prefer a Nordmann without a root ball? They are already available for pickup.

A long life
That brings us to the next question: which one stays good the longest? Should you get one with a root ball, a cut one, or does only the fake variant survive until the first Saturday after New Year's? If I accidentally walk in with the tree on New Year's Eve, glass and all, then it's already one gigantic rain of pins. It has to make it to that point before I sit with a bare tree on Christmas morning. I was just looking ahead for us (because yes, you want that early tree too).

The Nordmann is known for its sturdiness, with needles that stay on for a long time, but there is a price tag attached to that. The Japanese silver fir also hardly loses needles. If you buy a tree with a root ball, it is almost certain that it will last longer, although according to Intratuin, the root ball must weigh as much as the tree. This is easy to measure by holding the Christmas tree horizontally just above the root ball. Is the tree balanced? Then you're good. The most important thing, finally, is the care. Give your tree a little water several times a week, so no big splash all at once, and also spray the branches with a plant sprayer. It seems to love that.

And then…
Don't put that Christmas tree out on the street. There are better destinations for a tree. Bring it to a zoo (elephants love them) or donate it to a brewery (you'll get the best beers from it). Do you have one with a root ball? Then you plant it in the ground and you can dig it up again next year in October, November, or December.