Would you lease your Christmas tree? That’s a growing trend on the U.S. West Coast these days. Entrepeneur Joan Grandizio, who lives in Aliso Viejo, California, is hoping to persuade Orange County, California folks to lease their Christmas trees this year rather than buy a cut pine or artificial variety.
Her company, To Go Green Live Christmas Trees, takes care of the trees most of the year, delivers them to leasee home and apartment dwellers around Thanksgiving and picks them up again after New Years. Prices range from $50 to $135 depending on size. The varieties include deodar cedar, Aleppo pine, Leyland cypress and Monterey pine.
If you pre-order before September, Gradizio will include a free tree skirt.
Grandizio isn’t the only one with the Christmas tree leasing idea. Ikea did it back in the late ’80s-early ’90s even here in Southern California. Living Christmas Tree Company in Portland, Ore., claims to be the original, stared in 1992. Christmas Tree Rentals does it in the Bay Area, Rent a Living Christmas Tree LLC is in central California, and The Living Christmas Tree Co. in Torrance delivers from Santa Monica to Long Beach, according to a map on its website.
They all seem to emphasize the eco-friendliness of leasing over buying a Christmas tree. A few mention the convenience.
“I want to keep 30 million trees out of landfills,” Gradizio says. “And once a tree grows too big for the home or office, you can plant it in your yard or we will plant it in one of the burn areas of California.”
Customers can name their own tree and lease the same one every year, but there are obligations to leasing that cut-tree buyers don’t have. Leasees agree to properly water the tree and not put flocking or tinsel on it.
In between Christmases, the trees are kept at a local pinery, Grandizio says.
