WINNIPEG - Nurseries throughout Manitoba say residents who want to put up a Christmas tree may want to start their shopping now.
Garden centre staff say many who don’t act now may not get the selection they’re used to dreaming of every year. Increased demand is being fuelled by a quest for normalcy and getting back to activities and decor that people joy — following a year when some abandoned tree decorating traditions they couldn’t show to friends and relatives while they were confined to their own homes under previous public health orders.
Retailers say December could bring a panicked rush of binge-buying tree shoppers, not unlike earlier panic around toilet paper supplies. Last year, some tree sellers were completely sold out of their stock of over 1,000 trees by the first week of the month.
Experts say this year’s demand will be even higher, and the supply is nowhere close to keeping up, after the owners of what were once plenteous family-run tree farms began abandoning the business over a decade ago. It’s estimated that the supply of trees in Winnipeg alone this year will be just 60 per cent of what it was.
Horticulturists say it can take a decade or more for the trees to grow to a desired, sellable size.
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