The joy of Christmas is contagious at Fulk Farms in unincorporated Platte County near Platte City as families roam the fields looking for the perfect Christmas tree. The tree farm is one of the largest in the Kansas City area.
Although the Washington Post newspaper recently reported that Christmas tree production fell nearly 30 percent from 2002 to 2017 because fewer people are putting up live trees and are increasingly using artificial ones, Fulk Farms continues to attract people from all over the Kansas City area and has not seen a drop in sales from year to year. They have already sold about 1,400 trees in the last month.
“We get people from all over the Kansas City area coming to buy trees,” Brian Fulk, co-owner of the farm said. “A lot of folks come to buy trees from Fort Leavenworth especially. They also come from Weston, Platte City and all the way from Kansas City. People come from all over it seems like.”
Fulk Farms also has a gift store in the heated tree barn that offers free hot chocolate and coffee and sells freshly made wreaths and greenery. Unique gifts include ornaments and other Christmas decorations.
Brian and his dad, Dennis Fulk plant, trim, spray for bugs if necessary, and care for the trees, and Deb Hay manages the gift store. “The tree farm has been around so long that the kids of the people who first visited the farm when they were kids are now coming with their parents to find the perfect Christmas tree,” Hay said.
Fulk Farms is a six-generation family-owned farming operation and the original farm was homesteaded in 1889. The Fulk family originally raised hogs and planted row crops on the land.
In 1998, Fulk Farms was awarded Missouri Century Farm status by the University of Missouri Extension Service.
“My grandfather’s grandparents lived here originally,” Brian said. “The land wasn’t the greatest for raising corn and soybeans and my dad had the idea of starting a Christmas tree farm in 1992.”
The trees grow about 12 inches each year and the ones being sold right now were planted about 10 years ago.
The farm has an area where people can chop down their tree of choice which includes Scotch and white pines. The farm also offers fir trees that are shipped in from Wisconsin and Michigan. If people don’t want to cut their own trees, Brian and Dennis are happy to cut the trees for them. “But only if the customer can’t cut them,” Hay said. “It’s hard to go and cut down 400 trees.”
The farm is a labor-intensive business with 15,000 trees to care for.
The trees are planted in the spring and trimmed in the summer.
“This year me and my dad and another guy trimmed the trees and we got them finished in two weeks,” Brian said. “We have to trim them to shape them like a Christmas tree, otherwise they just get big and bushy. Selling them is really the easy part. The trimming is the hardest work.”
The farm attracts a lot of families who want their children to experience the beauty of the rolling hills of Christmas trees.
Brian said one of his favorite parts of tree farming is watching the families come together and seeing the kids running through the trees with their dogs.
When the weather is good the farm also offers festive tractor rides for the families.
“This is a really good way for families to do something fun together during the Christmas season,” Brian said.
He said the main advantage of a real tree versus an artificial one is the delightful live tree smell.
He also emphasized that trees are planted for every one that is cut down.
“There aren’t really a lot of tree farms left around the city,” Brian said. “They’re kind of disappearing. As people get older they don’t want to run them and there’s nobody coming along behind them who wants to do it. It gets to a point where everybody just wants to quit because it’s so labor-intensive.”
Dennis and Brian share pride that another generation of the Fulk family is carrying on the business after 131 years of family farming.
“I started the farm because I was tired of having to travel to Kearney to buy a Christmas tree every year,” Dennis said. “I decided to use the land in a positive way.”