Green Environmental Christmas

What makes a Christmas Tree to be green and environmentally conscious? That could be a tough question. Some farmers are working on this on the West coast, and are seeking certification that they are using environmentally sound practices. This has reached up to that ecotopia, Oregon, also the nation's leading grower of Christmas trees.

For the last seven years, Mark Rohlfs has been trucking 10,000-plus cut Christmas trees from his postcard-pretty Santa & Sons farm beside the McKenzie River to a retail lot on the outskirts of Hollywood. I guess this guy is the legendary "Kid from Oregon, by way of California, this is more than he could ever say or see. Cmon and lets be big greeeeeeenies." Rohlfs, a 53-year-old with a Santa-sized beard, gets a variety of questions from his Hollywood-area customers. Do the trees come from a forest? No he grows them each individually. Rohlfs signed up with the Coalition of Environmentally Conscious Growers, a 2-year-old, farmer-run group whose members get Christmas tree tags labeling the trees as "certified environmentally friendly." This looks at things such as pesticide levels used and other standards. Chemistry is looked at, soil preservation, stream erosion, you know the usual Madison Avenue stuff that makes all the little girl environmentalists (of both sexes) oh and ah in pure greeny-nish.