Last November, people in Jefferson County searched Google for a Christmas tree about 2,500 times. We looked for a place inside the county where they could cut a real one, and couldn't find one. The state's farm directory, the Christmas Tree Farmers Association of New York and our own county business directory list no choose-and-cut farm in Jefferson County. The closest farms are a 20- to 45-minute drive away, in Lewis and Oswego counties.
Below are those farms, what to know before you buy a real tree, and what the numbers say about why the real tree business is getting harder to find.
Most farms post their 2026 hours in mid-November. The hours below are from the 2025 season, so call or check the farm's Facebook page before you go. We'll update this page as 2026 hours are announced.
The closest choose-and-cut farms
| Farm | Miles from Watertown | What they offer | Hours | Phone |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simmons Farm Copenhagen (Lewis County) | about 20 | Choose-and-cut and precut trees, living trees, wreaths and garland. Saws, tying and baling provided; wagon rides and a gift shop. | Last listed hours: from Nov. 1, 9 a.m. until dark, seven days a week. Posts updates on Facebook. | (315) 767-0240 |
| Evergreen View Farm Lowville (Lewis County) Website · Hours | about 30 | Cut-your-own up to 7 feet ($50 to $70 in 2025) and precut trees ($50 to $120), wreaths, a gift shop, cocoa and goats. Takes cards and Venmo. | 2025: Nov. 22 and 23, then daily Nov. 28 to Dec. 23, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. | (315) 816-8602, call or text |
| Kelley's Tree Farm Croghan (Lewis County) | about 40 | Choose-and-cut, or pick one and they cut it; precut trees and boughs. Cash. | Hours are posted on Facebook. | (315) 346-6680 |
| Granger's Christmas Tree Farm Mexico (Oswego County) | about 45 | Choose-and-cut and roadside trees. | 2025: Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve, daily 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. | (315) 963-3480 |
Distances are approximate driving miles from downtown Watertown. The links under each farm go to its website or Facebook page, where 2026 hours usually appear first. Details come from the Christmas Tree Farmers Association of New York, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Oswego County and PickYourOwnChristmasTree.org.
Do you grow or sell real Christmas trees in Jefferson County? If you have a farm, a roadside stand or a lot we missed, tell us and we'll add you to this page.
Buying a real tree: four things to know
- Call ahead, and bring cash. Small farms close early when they sell out or the weather turns, and several take cash only.
- Measure first. Subtract the height of your stand and topper from your ceiling height. A tree that looks right in a field almost always looks bigger in a living room.
- Pick the species for how long you'll keep it. Balsam and Fraser firs hold their needles longest. Spruces have stiff branches for heavy ornaments but dry out sooner indoors.
- Water it the same day. A fresh-cut tree can drink about a gallon of water a day. If the stand runs dry, the cut seals over and the tree stops taking water.
A five-week buying window
Christmas tree searches in Jefferson County jump from about 380 in October to 2,500 in November, stay near 1,900 in December, then all but disappear in January.
That's a buying window of about five weeks. It's also one of the strongest seasonal swings we've measured in the county. Snow plowing, the most seasonal trade in our search demand study, rises about tenfold in winter. Christmas tree searches rise more than thirtyfold, from about 70 a month in summer to 2,500 in November.
Why real tree farms are getting harder to find
Most households that put up a tree now choose an artificial one. In a December 2025 YouGov survey, 71% of Americans planned to have a Christmas tree, and 81% of them planned on an artificial tree. Only 20% planned on a real one (some homes have both).
The farms have followed. Between 2002 and 2022, the number of U.S. farms harvesting Christmas trees fell by nearly 30%, from more than 13,600 to about 10,000, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation's reading of the Census of Agriculture. Growers cut about 14.5 million trees in 2022, roughly 550,000 fewer than in 2017.
But the money didn't shrink with the tree count. The same census put cut-tree sales at $553 million in 2022, up from $377 million in 2017, according to the USDA's Economic Research Service. Fewer trees are selling, each for more.
Three things make this market unusual:
- The product takes a decade. A tree needs seven to 10 years to reach the 6 to 8 feet most buyers want. A grower who plants this spring is betting on demand in the 2030s. When the outlook dims, people stop planting, and a few years later local supply runs out.
- The competitor is imported and reusable. Between 85% and 95% of the artificial trees sold in the U.S. come from China, and those imports grew from about $170 million in 2000 to more than $500 million in 2024. One artificial tree, bought once, stands in for a decade or more of real-tree purchases.
- The farms that remain sell an outing, not just a tree. Look at the list above: wagon rides, bonfires, cocoa, goats, photo spots, gift shops. The tree is part of a family trip, and it costs more than a tree on a lot.
What this means locally
The demand is here: about 2,500 searches in November alone. Supply that people can find online isn't. Some of that may be a visibility gap rather than a real absence. Small growers often sell from a hand-painted sign at the end of a driveway and never appear in a directory or on a map. Anyone who does show up for "christmas tree farm near me" in Jefferson County this November would have the results nearly to themselves.
For a grower, that's a reason to get on the map before Thanksgiving: a Google Business Profile with this season's hours, a Facebook post when the field opens, and a listing in the Christmas Tree Farmers Association's farm locator. It's also a reminder of what a decade-long crop asks of a business. The trees in the field this season were planted seven to 10 years ago, on a guess about this year's buyers.
Sources
- Google Ads Keyword Planner, monthly searches in Jefferson County, NY, October 2025 to September 2026 (pulled October 28, 2026).
- YouGov, "All I want for Christmas is data on Americans' holiday traditions," December 10, 2025 (surveys of about 1,100 U.S. adults, December 1 to 5, 2025).
- American Farm Bureau Federation, "Real Christmas Trees: A Market Worth Supporting," December 1, 2025.
- USDA Economic Research Service, "U.S. tree farms cut more than 14.5 million Christmas trees in 2022," December 4, 2024.
- Christmas Tree Farmers Association of New York, choose-and-cut farms; Cornell Cooperative Extension of Oswego County, Christmas tree farm directory; Evergreen View Farm; PickYourOwnChristmasTree.org, upstate New York.