Monday, November 23, 2015

Cut Your Own Christmas Tree

Frostproof, Fla. – A timeless Christmas family tradition of selecting a Christmas tree comes alive at Lake Wales Ridge State Forest. Explore a beautiful state forest, select a sand pine tree from the Arbuckle Tract and harvest your own Florida Christmas tree for ten dollars.

“You will need to bring your own hand saw and recommend gloves,” states District Manager Kawika Bailey, Florida Forest Service. “We invite you to meet our State Forest representative at the McLean Cabin prior to cutting your tree to ensure you obtain a special permit, adhere to tree size limitations and specific cutting locations.”

There are natural areas of scrub and sandhill ecosystems that contain dense sand pine saplings on the Lakes Wales Ridge State Forest and for five years the Annual Sand Pine Christmas Tree Sale has helped to thin out some of these stands on the Arbuckle tract. As part of management within these ecosystems, sand pine removal is desired in order to help maintain these ecosystems by not allowing sand pines to dominate these ecosystems.

Tree thinning is a term foresters apply to the removal of some trees from a stand to give others more room to grow. Trees spaced closely together compete for sunlight, water and nutrients. As these trees grow, each places increasing demands upon the site’s resources. The larger trees simply need more water, nutrients and sunlight than they did when smaller. Eventually, the site reaches a point where it can no longer support all of the young forest’s trees; weak trees die from resource limitations.

“You can help create a healthy forest and take home your own Florida Christmas tree,” explains Kawika.

Please contact Lakes Wales Ridge State Forest for select dates and times

Lake Wales Ridge State Forest
(863) 589-0545
851 CR 630 East
Frostproof, FL 33843

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