No Christmas trees, no Christmas trees — the lots are empty as can be By: Doug Speirs  Posted: 7:00 PM CST Monday, Dec. 7, 2020

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/12/2020 (1438 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It might take a Christmas miracle to get your hands on even a scraggly Charlie Brown-style tree this holiday season.

Winnipeg garden centre owners interviewed Monday morning said they are totally sold out and they’ve never seen stock vanish this quickly in all their years in the business.

They likened it to the holiday version of panicked shoppers binge-buying toilet paper when the COVID-19 pandemic first arrived in the province back in March.

“I’m sold out,” declared Ray DuBois, owner of Ron Paul Garden Centre on St. Mary’s Road. “I could see it coming back in August. When we placed our order, I bumped it up by 10 per cent.”

DuBois said he sold more than 1,200 trees this season, and the last one walked off the lot Saturday.

“It’s been pretty crazy,” he said. “I’ve never sold out of trees five days into December in my life! I’ve sold out before, but it’s usually around Dec. 20th. This has never happened in my existence here and I’ve owned it (the garden centre) for 11 years.

“If you haven’t got one by now, you may not be getting one. You’re going to be hard-pressed to find a tree. I called every contact in North America to get more trees and I couldn’t get anything.”

“I called every contact in North America to get more trees and I couldn’t get anything.” – Ray DuBois

He put it all down to the pandemic. Instead of going on Christmas vacations, shoppers are staying home and hoping the holiday tradition of putting up a tree injects some normalcy into an abnormal season.

“We’ve had tons of people who had never come here before,” DuBois said. “I think people panicked. It was like the toilet-paper rush. People were afraid they weren’t going to get their trees. People just panicked.

“Everybody just wants to try and right this horrible madness. They want a little bit of joy in a joyless time. They’re trying to get a little bit of normal… It’s Psychology 101 — people just want to feel normal.”

At Lacoste Garden Centre, also on St. Mary’s Road, co-owner Jordan Hiebert said his stock was wiped out by a similar rush of panic buying spurred by the pandemic.

“We are sold out of live trees,” Hiebert said. “We still have artificial trees but live trees sold out on the weekend. The last one walked out on Sunday. It was crazy. We bought a lot more this year anticipating more of a demand — all of the snowbirds that normally go south are at home and people are just worried about getting one (tree).

“A lot of people normally wait until the 12th (to buy a tree), but this year was mad because they saw how things were in the COVID-19 environment. They didn’t want to risk not getting a tree. You feel so bad having to turn families away.”

DuBois and Hiebert agreed customers are going to have to hunt far and wide this year to track down any remaining trees around the city.

“Everyone I know — all the garden centres and the tree lots — sold out really quickly,” Hiebert said. “I don’t know anyone who has trees right now. I’ve never seen anything like this and I’ve been doing it since 2004.

“It’s the earliest anyone I know has ever been sold out. It’s pretty unreal.” – Jordan Hiebert

“Trees were selling quickly in November. Coming into December we were almost half sold out. It’s the earliest anyone I know has ever been sold out. It’s pretty unreal. We sold about 1,300 trees this year at a rate of a few hundred a day.

“It’s 100 per cent because of COVID-19. I think the mindset of people this year was that there was an urgency and they didn’t want to get stuck without a tree. It took the magic away from it… I love talking to customers and seeing the families come in. I definitely miss that interaction with the customers.”

Elsewhere in the city, a voice recording at Shelmerdine Garden Centre on Roblin Boulevard said they were also sold out of live trees. The website of the 67th Winnipeg Scout Group said its River Heights lot, which has been running for 56 years, was sold out, but later in the day indicated curbside pickup was still available with a minimum two days’ notice.

A Home Depot employee in the Polo Park store’s lawn and garden department said the big-box outlet still had two varieties of trees available Monday online (visit the website and search for “THD trees”) but likely not for long.

“We’ve still got some on our website,” he said. “They’re going to be sold out in the next two or three days. They’ll be gone by the weekend for sure.”

The owner of the family-run Country Pines Tree Farm in Tyndall, about 48 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, said his two truckloads of pre-cut trees were sold in a single day before the calendar even turned to December.

“I doubled my order for pre-cuts,” Mike Kisiloski said in a telephone interview. “I shut the field down because they (the province) didn’t want want any group gatherings in the field because of COVID-19. So, I’m done. That’s it.

“I’ve got trees in the field, but I’m 72 years old so I’m not going to be dragging trees out. I’m going to leave it until next year. I’ve never sold out on opening day on Nov. 28. It was a gong show.

“I’ve never sold out on opening day on Nov. 28. It was a gong show.” – Mike Kisilosk

“Everybody’s staying at home now so everybody wants a real tree and a real Christmas. It (the tree) used to be at grandma’s house and now everybody wants their own.”

DuBois, meanwhile, complained he feels he’s being harassed by bylaw enforcement officers, even though his garden centre store is closed and his staff outdoors are following safety protocols regarding masks and physical distancing.

“We’ve had five visits (from inspectors) in about eight days,” the garden centre owner said, adding he feels singled out because he’s appeared on TV news discussing tree sales. “They’re looking for infractions. I’m as mad as I can be.

“What I’m mad about is when I talk to my competition, they say no one’s been there. We did a drive-thru tree farm so people didn’t have to get out of their cars.

“I feel harassed, I feel targeted… but they haven’t given me a single ticket.”

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca