As a kid growing up in the US of A we always had real Christmas trees that we picked out each year and brought home. Dad would fish out the Christmas stand from wherever it was being stored and we'd have to screw it into place before putting the tree skirt around it and decorating it. Now a key part in my memory was to make sure there was always water in the stand so the tree wouldn't dry out. I finally found such a stand in France and this year when we were picking out our live tree (at a nursery, not the grocery store) I asked how long ago it had been cut to make sure we weren't getting an old dry one. She said well it doesn't matter, once it's cut it's no longer a living plant but wood. So I explained that we'd always put water for our trees. She said it was a myth and that there was absolutely no point in watering a cut tree.
Thoughts???
I'm torn, she seemed very knowledgable and qualified but I just remembering the tree "drinking" a lot more water than could have naturally evaporated...
What I do love is that they put it in the net after you pick it out - SO much easier to transport!!
8 commentaires:
Surely it's the same as for flowers? If I remember my biology right, the cells can keep taking up water even after the stems have been cut.
I think the most important is to make a fresh cut on the bottom to enable it to drink up more water.
We got ours at IKEA and it seems exceptionally fresh. It's in my water stand that I brought back from the states a few years back and is definitely drinking water (unless the dog is drinking it in secret).
Good memory! And, yes, cut trees DO keep drinking after they're cut! The fresher (more recently cut) the tree, the more it drinks. To get the tree to drink, cut the end and put it immediately into water.
Here's a link from the Oklahoma Christmas Tree Assoc.
http://www.okchristmastrees.com/tree%20care.html
I rarely had real trees growing up so I didn't know anything about this! Our real tree is sitting nailed to a stump, no water in sight. I hope it'll last till New Years!
Yeah, sorry, that lady was an idiot. I brought a tree stand from home with a thing for adding water. You just want to cut a couple of cm off the bottom like you do flowers. My uncle was just telling me last month that one year he had a tree that drank up 2 quarts of water the first night and that thing was still green in February out on the wood pile!
What? First time I've ever heard of that. I'm no botanist, but, in my experience, if you put a branch of freshly cut rosemary in a glass of water vs. no water, it dries out a lot faster with no water. Therefore my conclusion is that she didn't know what the heck she was talking about! :)
Definitely a myth! The fresh cut however, as someone pointed out, is necessary for the tree to be at its' healthiest. My family has been selling Christmas trees for over 30 years so I'm an expert by default!
Thanks everyone!!!
Leah, you're an intern everywhere! :-)
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