BY JANE BLOODWORTH ROWE
CREEDS — For farmer Jim Bright, Christmas trees aren’t just another crop.
They’re a labor of love, and a passion that sprang from a lifetime’s service to forestry.
Bright has been growing Christmas trees on his Creeds farm since the 1980s, and each year he and his wife, Anne Bright, market cut-your-own trees to customers armed with axes or saws and willing to do a little physical labor to get that perfect tree for the holiday season.
Now, the couple says they won’t plant any more young trees, and they plan to close their Christmas tree operation in a few years after the existing trees are all sold. Locals will still have the option of cutting their own trees at other farms.
There is a new one, too, with a connection to the Brights. A neighbor, Heath Boomer, has established a Christmas tree farm that opened for business for the first time this year. He said Jim Bright took him under his wing.
Jim Bright, who is retired from the Virginia Department of Forestry, became interested in growing trees in the early 1980s when the forestry department and Virginia Tech were heavily promoting Virginia-grown trees.
He planted five acres of trees that were large enough to sell by 1988, but, when the farm opened for business, Jim Bright had some mixed feelings about seeing the first trees sold, his wife said.
“Jim was like he was losing his firstborn,” Anne Bright said. “When the first customers left, he said, ‘Oh, my trees are leaving.’”
Growing them is a slow, labor-intensive process. Consumers today prefer large trees, and it takes several years for a seedling to grow to be eight feet tall, which is about the height most customers want.
Growing them also proved to be a learning process.
Bright initially planted 1,200 trees per acre, but, as the trees grew, they became overcrowded. He had to re-calculate the number of trees per acre.
He also experimented with different types of trees, including Norway spruce, Virginia pine and Douglas firs.
Some of the trees didn’t like the hot, wet weather, some were very vulnerable to insects, and the Virginia pine had a mind of its own.
It grew into “odd shapes,” as Anne Bright put it.
Now, most of the trees are white pines, and they’ve proven to be popular with customers, although Anne Bright said she sometimes has to educate people about how to decorate them.
“The white pines are soft, and you have to learn how to decorate them,” Anne Bright said.
The farm usually opens for sales soon after Thanksgiving “and we’re generally sold out within two days,” Anne Bright said.
Boomer, who teaches history at Ocean Lakes High School, said that he yearned to grow Christmas trees because selecting trees with his family was one of his “fondest childhood memories.”
Boomer, who is related to Jim Bright, approached Bright about growing trees several years ago.
“He took me under his wing,” Boomer said. “I owe it all to him. He taught me everything. And I’m honored to have the support from community, family and friends.”
Jim Bright also wants to assure his produce customers that, while he’s eventually retiring from the Christmas tree business, he’s not ready to give up produce farming anytime soon.
“I still have collards, kale and corn to plant,” he said.
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