Christmas Trees
How To Set It Up Once you have your tree home, you need to prepare it for its stand. If you are going to store it for a while before setup, see the Storing Your Tree section.
Cut off about a half of one inch of wood from the base of the trunk and immediately put in a bucket of water or your tree stand that already contains water. The reason for the cut is that it exposes new, moist, live cells on the trunk that will more easily absorb water. Do not cut the base at a diagonal as you may have heard from some people. Only the bottom couple of inches of the trunk absorb water so a diagonal cut does not help but does the opposite. If you are reluctant to cut the tree yourself or have no tools, ask your supplier to do this before you transport the tree home. Do not get the base dirty and be sure to immediately place it in water when you get home. This is only recommended for a short travel distances.
Use an appropriate size tree stand. The stand should be able to hold enough water, about a days worth, and should be able to accommodate the tree trunk comfortably. Never shave off the side of the trunk or bark to fit it into the stand. This will greatly reduce the life of your tree. At this point you may want to consider placing a tree bag under the stand to make the eventual removal of the tree less challenging. You can hide it under your decorative tree shirt easily.
During the first 24 hours after the fresh cut, a tree will absorb as much as a gallon of water or more so watch it carefully. Use only plain water in the tree stand. All the hype about evaporation reducers and chemicals for preservation do not help. Also, warm water is of no benefit. If possible use room temperature water or just cool out of the tap is fine.
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