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Photo by Wales Hunter
Giving Trees
Werkmeister's Christmas Tree Farm in Shepherdsville
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Photo by Wales Hunter
Christmas Tree Farms
Werkmeister's Christmas Tree Farm in Shepherdsville
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Photo by Wales Hunter
Werkmeister's Christmas Tree Farm 2
Werkmeister's Christmas Tree Farm in Shepherdsville
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Photo by Wales Hunter
Werkmeister's Christmas Tree Farm 3
Werkmeister's Christmas Tree Farm in Shepherdsville
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Photo by Wales Hunter
Giving Trees
Werkmeister's Christmas Tree Farm in Shepherdsville
Trees are givers. They provide cool shade in the summer and yield warmth in the winter. They give us nourishment, shelter and fresh air. Trees also can bring us memories.
Especially Christmas trees.
The Werkmeisters are the giving sort, as well. In addition to contributing to their church and community, they also give to the people of Kentucky and southern Indiana a measure of holiday spirit by growing and selling Christmas trees on their Shepherdsville farm.
“I enjoy the family atmosphere,” owner Robert Werkmeister explains. “As long as the weather is halfway decent, it’s fun selling Christmas trees because everybody is in a good mood.”
This year, that family atmosphere will have an underlying sadness for the Werkmeister crew. After a valiant battle against cancer, Robert’s wife and business partner, Mallie Jo, passed away in June 2012—just four days after the couple’s 51st wedding anniversary. For the farm, she was at various times tractor driver, grass cutter and telephone answerer. For her community, she was a teacher, Girl Scout leader and a talented home economist who used her wide variety of skills, including knitting and quilting, to assist others. For her family, which includes three children and 10 grandchildren, she was a beautiful wife and mother whose favorite Christmas tree was the Canaan fir, and who always fussed at Robert for not charging more than $10 for their handmade evergreen wreaths. Mallie Jo’s spirit permeates every facet of the farm—from the trees she planted, to her now-quiet dulcimer sitting in the foyer of the Werkmeister home, to the lives of countless family and friends she touched.
Christmas merrymaking wasn’t always the Werkmeister way.
One hot July Fourth in 1986, Robert and Mallie Jo had something of an “aha” moment. The air was thick and heavy with humidity, and the two had purchased bales of hay for the cattle on their 7-plus-acre farm. The help didn’t show up, so Robert was forced to heave hundreds of bales—each weighing well more than 100 pounds—by himself.
“I knew there had to be a better way,” Robert now says with a chuckle. “I didn’t want to be in the hot sun.”
The Werkmeisters didn’t really have enough land to grow corn or soybeans, so they decided to sell the cattle and plant trees instead—Christmas trees. “Growing Christmas trees is really something that doesn’t require a lot of equipment. It requires a lot of work, but not a lot of equipment. And there weren’t a lot of Christmas tree farms [in Kentucky] at the time,” Robert explains.
The industrious duo planted 1,500 trees on one acre that first year, harvesting their first small tree four years later. “The kids had told their friends we had a Christmas tree farm. They thought that was pretty neat, and some of their friends wanted a tree.”
It wasn’t until 1993 that the real business began. “When you plant trees, they’re very small seedlings—roughly a foot high. And you’ve got to wait till they’re 7- or 8-foot tall until you start selling them,” says the 72-year-old farmer. “That’s why you find that most Christmas tree farmers are old people. Sixty to 65 years of age is the average. Today’s generation is about instant gratification. If you plant a tree and have to wait seven to eight years to harvest it, most people can’t plan that far out.”
Now, every year on Thanksgiving weekend, the Werkmeisters open up their farm for business. For a flat rate of $45, a family can come to Clarks Lane in rural Bullitt County and pick out whatever tree they like—Canaan fir, Serbian spruce, Scotch pine or another variety. A member of the Werkmeister family—the children and grandchildren now help—will cut the tree, haul it in a wagon, shake all loose needles and debris, and then net it. The only thing customers have to do is pay and go.
Visitors also have the opportunity to buy fresh, handmade wreaths. Not one to waste, Robert uses the “ugly, Charlie Brown trees” to fashion the greenery over wire frames and complete with pinecone accents. His 22-year-old granddaughter, Sarah, helps make many of the natural garlands. And thanks to the 2012 drought, there might be plenty more “ugly” trees for his wreaths in, say, five years.
“The drought killed a lot of young trees … about 30 percent of the trees that are 2 years old and under. But it happens,” he says.
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“You see that,” Robert says as he points to a wall adorned with awards and ribbons. “That’s Mallie Jo’s power wall. It’s full of all the awards and recognition plaques she got from people like the county extension and Girl Scouts for all her work. She’s got more ribbons. I just haven’t found them yet.”
Mallie Jo Werkmeister was a giver … much like the trees she helped to grow.
Despite their loss, the family is determined to press on with the tree farm. It’s become a tradition for countless families, including their own. So, come Thanksgiving weekend, Werkmeister’s Christmas Tree Farm will be open for business as usual and charging its standard rate for any size or variety of tree and still just $10 for the wreaths. Mallie Jo would be proud … and perhaps also mildly frustrated about the price for the wreaths.
But Robert admits this year will have one big difference. Instead of the family gathering elsewhere, they’ve decided to all get together at the farmhouse on Christmas Eve as a way of honoring their beloved wife, mother and grandmother. And of course, there will be a live tree from their farm taking center stage in the decorations. “This year,” Robert says, “everybody’s coming here. Everybody’s coming home.”
For a list of Kentucky Christmas Tree Farms, click here.