You Can Feel Good About Buying A Christmas Tree From Porter River:

There are many reasons why you should feel good about purchasing a real Nova Scotia balsam fir from Porter River for your family during the holiday season. First, is the spicy and delicious fragrance of the balsam fir tree. It sets itself apart from all other types of fir trees, and a fake tree can’t even compete in the aroma category.  If a fake tree is scented the aroma is derived
from chemicals that could be harmful to your family.  When your friends and family come over to your home or business during the holiday season they will be greeted with a smooth enjoyable smell that will put everyone in good Christmas spirits.

Next is knowing you are getting a top quality Christmas Tree from Jonathan & Andrew MacIsaac. Our lives have been devoted to understanding the challenges and techniques that are involved in growing the world’s best Nova Scotia balsam fir Christmas tree. We are passionate about what we do and want to continue to farm Christmas trees for many years to come. In order to do this we must take care of the soil, various vegetation, and wild animals who inhabit our farm.  We create a habitat that is positive for the balsam tree, wildlife, and vegetation to all grow and flourish together in the most natural setting possible. At Porter River we differ from many tree farms where we are not a planted farm on clear cut land. Our trees are all grown in different stages mixed together in a natural forest environment, so it is never clear cut.

The PH level in our soil in Guysborough County, Nova Scotia is perfect for Balsam Fir and our high altitude and cool climate allow our trees to harden off (go into dormant Winter state) earlier. These conditions combine to produce lush, dark green foliage on a tree that will retain its needles longer than Balsam Firs found in other regions.

Many farms spend a lot of time and money controlling species of plants that compete with their crops, this can lead to huge pieces of land with only one type of vegetation making it extremely easy for insect pests and disease infestations to spread.  We try to co-exist with Red Maple, Yellow and White Birch, Blueberries, Blackberries, Raspberries, Lady Slippers, Bunch Berry, Fox Berry, and any other species of plants that grow on our farm. Pollinators such as bees, birds, hornets and wasps prefer a variety of plants to collect pollen from; this wide range of plants allows these insects and birds to collect pollen all season long. Keeping these pollinators around all season long is important because most of these birds and bees are also predators that eat aphids, caterpillars, midges all of which can do serious damage to a Balsam Fir. We also place bat and birds houses throughout our land as a form of natural pesticide to help keep harmful insects under control.

Some of the vegetation and animals that grow and live in and amongst our trees that we see consistently are:

Vegetation- Blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, fiddleheads, chanterelle mushrooms, lady slippers, bunch berry, and many more.

Wildlife species- Black bears, deer, coyotes, wildcats, partridge, hawks, eagles, several other bird species, bats, rabbits, field mice, salamanders, snakes, skunks, racoons, foxes, weasels.

The next thing we do that makes us more natural than other farms is how our tree farm seeds and re-seeds itself to keep producing top genetic trees at all different stages year after year.

To make this happen we strategically select our best genetic trees in each area and let them grow to maturity so they will go to seed and produce many more genetically superior Balsam fir trees. A few reasons why we choose to seed our farm from natural seed trees are:

• Once you buy seedlings from the nursery there’s no guarantee that they will survive.

• Planted seedlings take a lot longer for their roots to take and start to grow.

• Planted seedlings might struggle to grow and survive in the natural environment you place them because they don’t have the right genetics to flourish in those specific conditions.

• Our genetically superior seed trees are 25 to 50 years old, these trees and their parent trees  have thrived in their location for centuries. We prefer seed from our local seed trees over seedlings derived from other locations because soil types and micro climates differ even 30 kilometres away.

• Seedlings are generally derived from very few parent trees; this creates thousands of seedlings that are exactly the same. All of our individual trees have unique characteristics’ while maintaining a desirable shape and density.

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