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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us December 22, 2005 Last-minute tree shoppers find procrastination hurts By Bill Varble For the Tidings Where, oh where, have all the Christmas trees gone? On Monday, with six shopping days left before Christmas, Kathy Rowe couldn’t find a Christmas tree anywhere in Ashland. So she drove to Medford. By the time she got to Valley View Nursery in the South Gateway Center the nursery was down to its last two trees. She snapped one up. The Ashland woman stopped at the Rite Aid in town for some lights on her way home. “And there was a couple from Medford dragging the last tree in to pay for it,” she says. “They’d just been looking in Medford at Valley View. They said, ‘You’re the one that got the last tree.’” Christmas trees sold quickly in Southern Oregon this season, and if you were one of the procrastinators, it could be too late. Rowe, a nurse, says she looked at some of her usual connections, including the Grange Co-op in Ashland (live trees only) and Southern Oregon Nursery on South Pacific Highway (sold out) before she got lucky. Valley View’s Kristen Baker says trees went faster than usual this year. “Usually we have leftovers,” she says Wednesday. “Not this year. I don’t know what’s going on. I probably could have sold 20 or 30 more trees the last couple days.” One Christmas tree at the nursery each year is a fund-raising tree for Food and Friends, a senior nutrition program. The tree sits out all season and usually ends up in the “bird pile” with the discards. Not this year. “A guy came in and wanted it,” she says. She sold the 6-foot Noble fir for $20, or about half its retail value. Sharri Griffin, of Clark’s Tree Farm off Madrone Lane near Jacksonville, says she’d sold all her trees for the year by Dec. 11. That’s about the same time as last year. But she says people started shopping early. “We were busy the weekend of the third and fourth,” she says. “Most people got them by the 9th, 10th and 11th. If we’d brought more, we might have been able to stay open longer. “I noticed the lot across from Black Bird was all sold out, too. I heard there were some trees by the Mini Pet Mart on Stewart.” Nope. The only thing at the Stewart lot Wednesday is a big mud puddle. A Mini Pet Mart employee says the tree vendor sold out several days ago. At least one man who keeps his eye on such things figures it’s all probably part of a trend back to cut trees. Brian Ostlund, of Salem, a spokesman for the Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Association, says there seems to be a reversal over the past three or four years of a 1990s trend to artificial trees. “It seems like one of the strongest years in quite a while,” he says. “Growers are thrilled.” Many retailers in Los Angeles were sold out a week ago, he says. Those who sell tress have learned to be more careful not to get stuck with unsold trees, he adds. “I heard there weren’t nearly as many vendors as in the past,” Griffin says. “Maybe the last couple years they didn’t do so well. I’m not sure.” DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Free Music Downloads Slippers Ceramic Piggy Banks Online Casinos FREE Entertainment Guide Calenders 2006 Calendar Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products best online casino tcg student loan consolidation teleconferencing Myspace Layouts cortisol; weight loss Diamonds Futures Broker Bad Credit Loans Auto & Personal Loans Search Engine Optimization Southern Oregon Loans Sportsbook Ztech Media Hosting Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Security Systems Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Student Loans Bonus Casino ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Mailing Lists Mystery Shopping Jobs Debt Consolidation Loans Canadian Pharmacy Casino Gambling Sites Backpacks Click Here .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams