Its Over

[Johnny Noshoes]

There seems to be a mini forest of discarded Christmas trees in my neighborhood - here is one.

[alfredo]

1. We compost old Xmas trees here.

[Sherman A1]

2. Our community does as well

just need to drop them in the pile at a couple of the local parks and they are taken to be processed for compost, which we residents can then pick up for use around our homes.

[alfredo]

3. Here trucks with chippers deal with the "sidewalk" trees.

[RC]

5. How can you use evergreen trees as compost?

Don't the needles inhibit stuff from growing?

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Our city grinds them up for mulch.

In Nome, the old Christmas trees are collected and then placed strategically on the Ice during the Iditarod festivities as the "Nome National Forest." http://nome.nosd.schoolaccess.net/~acsa/nome%20national%20forest/forest.html

[RC]

8. You did not answer my question.

There is something in the pine needles that prohibit the growth of other plants. So how does that work for mulch?

[Blue_In_AK]

9. It doesn't seem to bother the flowers and trees that it's put around.

Alaska has acid soil anyway, so the spruce or fir is just another natural component. Our forests are mulched with spruce.

[Solly Mack]

4. It looks so lonely.

[Johnny Noshoes]

7. It looked like..

It looked like this poor little "Charlie Brown Tree".
I think we used to compost them here in NYC I don't know when that changed. It just seems like such a waste.

[KC]

10. That was

my first thought too that it reminded me of Charlie Browns tree.

[Celebration]

11. one of my most profound memories in elementary school

Is my fourth grade teacher reading us Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale about a discarded Christmas tree. It was a DARK fairy tale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fir-Tree

It obviously made a profound impression on me.

I think of it every time I see a discarded tree, and that was my first thought when I saw your photo.