Pick up your Christmas tree from Oahu and Maui farms

A Christmas tree need not come from the Pacific Northwest to be beautiful.

If you don’t like to read anything about Christmas until after you’ve eaten turkey and all the trimmings, please save this page for next week.

Locally grown Christmas trees are plentiful on Oahu and Maui, and while state officials and online searches identified additional growers on Oahu and Hawaii island, none could be reached in time for this column.

Helemano Farms LLC in Whitmore Village on Oahu has been known for years for its Norfolk pine and Leyland cypress trees.

The farm has nearly doubled its acreage with a new lease this year.

"I’ve got 12 more acres, but I’m not planting it all at once," said owner Aaron O’Brien.

Last year’s planting of 2,400 trees was double the year earlier’s planting, "and this year we’re going to try to plant 4,500 trees," he said. Trees take three to four years before they’re at minimum harvest height.

Helemano is offering potted Christmas trees and other varieties ranging from $25 to $125, while the choose-and-cut trees start at $40. Charlie Brown-type trees will sell at a discount, O’Brien said.

Helemano will open for the season’s business at 10 a.m. Nov. 29 and will maintain regular hours of operation from noon to sunset Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, and from 10 a.m. to sunset on the weekends.

Maui has two active farms popular with residents and visitors for their Monterey pines.

"The Monterey pines have a pine scent, where the Norfolk pines don’t," said Shirley Buetler, who with her husband, Hugo, runs Upcountry Farm Specialties Inc.

The farm on Calasa Road will open to the public for Christmas tree sales from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 as well as Dec. 7, 8, 14, 15. The last day for pickups is Dec. 21.

The sales include "a craft show with all of our products" from the family-run business, including dry wreaths with dried protea, evergreen wreaths with fresh protea, as well as coffees, jams, jellies and dressings, she said.

Upcountry sells trees of 5 feet and taller for $11 a foot.

Kula Botanical Garden Inc. is apparently Hawaii’s oldest active Christmas tree farm, established by Warren and Helen McCord in 1971 and selling Christmas trees since 1975, Helen said.

"It’s such a fun time, and now we’re getting children of the children that still buy from us, the second and third generation," she said. "On our lot we play Christmas carols, the helpers have red shirts and they work for tips, holding up the (pre-cut) trees and carrying them to cars" for customers.

A 6-foot tree is $60, "and the price goes up and down from there," she said.

The McCords sell trees, wreaths, ornaments, "snow," hot chocolate and coffee. And from the gift shop, they sell made-in-Hawaii gifts so "customers can finish their Christmas shopping."

Kula Botanical Garden is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 365 days a year, but Christmas tree sales commence Nov. 30 and Dec. 1. Trees will again be sold on the lot fronting the garden Dec. 6, 7 and 8.

"After that we have trees available at the gift shop," she said.

"In between, we take care of the hotels and restaurants and other commercial businesses," McCord said. Those businesses include Whole Foods Market on Maui, and after last year’s successful sales, the produce manager for the state decided to offer the McCords’ trees at Whole Foods Market stores in Kailua and Kahala.

"They are excited and we are excited," she said. The first shipment will leave the garden Tuesday for its Oahu-bound trek.

Christmas tree growers from the mainland (who can write off trips to Hawaii by visiting the garden, she intimated), are surprised to learn that the McCords’ tree sales are essentially over in five days, whereas mainland tree lots are open from the day after Thanksgiving until Christmas.

However, Helen McCord did sell a Christmas tree on Dec. 26 last year.

"A tourist’s plane was delayed, and they’d all been looking foward to celebrating Christmas in Hawaii, so that’s part of the joy we can share," she said.

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“Buy Local” runs on Aloha Fridays. Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com or on Twitter as @erikaengle.