Rent A Living Christmas Tree offers a sustainable solution to holiday inflation, owner explains

Rent A Living Christmas Tree Owner and Operator Monica Hudson explains how her company allows customers to rent Christmas trees and how inflation has impacted the Christmas tree industry.

Video Transcript

DAVE BRIGGS: Well, we're closing in on the Christmas holiday, and if you have not bought your tree yet, you might want to consider renting one. Our next guest runs a Christmas-tree rental business in central California. The trees live in a forest nursery, and when the holidays roll around, the company will deliver the potted tree to your home and pick it up at the end of the holiday. At that point, the tree returns to the forest nursery.

Joining us now is Monica Hudson, Rent a Living Christmas Tree owner and operator. Nice to see you, Monica. Why did you get this idea? How does this work?

MONICA HUDSON: Well, first to the idea. In 2008, I saw a nursery man in England loaning trees out that he didn't sell before Christmas, and that gave me the idea.

And as far as it working, you mentioned earlier we do grow these trees here on our farm in Carmel, California. We deliver them to the customers. Most of the customers order online, and then the rental is for 30 days. And at the end of that period, maximum 30 days, we come back and bring the tree home to our farm where they join the birds that nest in it and become part of the environment here and live to see another Christmas, very often in the same home.

JARED BLIKRE: And, Monica, I'm wondering about the logistics here, specifically the roots, arguably one of the most important parts of the tree. Do you have like a whole root system that has to follow the tree indoors each year? Are you able to trim it a little bit? Just wondering how that works.

MONICA HUDSON: [LAUGHS] Yeah, that's a really good question. The only way that's really possible is to have the tree live in a pot. And as you mentioned, the root system is important. As the tree grows, so does the pot. And the men here have a monumentous job of potting, especially the larger trees.