Growing a Christmas tree from seed

Choose your tree and buy seed. Here are some ideal specimens.

Scots Pine - the most widely planted pine species for Christmas tree production in the USA, it tolerates a wide range of soil and moisture conditions. It grows vigorously and responds very well to shaping. Needle retention is excellent. A relatively fast grower, it takes only six to eight years to produce a five to eight foot tree.
White Pine – an increasing popular tree with flexible soft needles, fragrant aroma, and blue-green colour. A five to seven foot tree can be grown in seven to ten years. Timely shearing and pruning on this species, beginning in the fourth year will reward you with an attractive conical shape.

If you don’t have a garden, or room for a tree in the house:

Jerusalem cherries - are bushy shrubs that grow up to eighteen inches tall and the same across. Insignificant star-shaped blossoms appear in summer on woody stems, followed by decorative orange-scarlet berries, often in time for the holiday season. Given a summer outdoors in a sunny place and the right growing conditions, Jerusalem cherries will bloom and fruit again the next year. Starting off:

Fill a pot with peat-free compost for seedlings.
Sow seeds on the surface.
Cover with horticultural grit that is twice the size of the seedlings. This allows more air to circulate and protects the seedlings when watering from the top and also recreates natural conditions.
Sow in February and provide bottom heat in May. Keep well watered in a greenhouse.
Once the seedlings emerge, prick out and transplant into four inch pots.
Keep potting on as seedlings grow over the first twelve months.
After two or more years, seedlings are eighteen to twenty four high and sufficiently strong to be planted in their permanent spot.

Christmas Tree from seed photograph by isipoeria, used under a creative commons attribution licence.