Funny just looking at your channel last night wondering when you would be posting, figured you were busy with the trees, been following your journey the past 4 years now, Looking good and sounds like better for the future. Another fun Christmas season.
I appreciate you following along. I wish I had put out more vids of our process getting ready for the season and some of the behind the scenes but like I said its a struggle to get everything done in time without having to worry about the camera.
I had lost touch w youtube world while my daughter fought cancer. Gosh I have missed your channel Phil.... I was one of your very first subscribers. 10th? Under a different email. Man I have missed you! You will be SELLING your own trees this year!!!! I am literally in tears, no lie. That warms my heart. IK it is a huge PIA to carry that camera around and film. I hope maybe you are monetized now. Everything looks great brother. I have 2 dozers, I wish you could get them there and slap not just a turn around across from the shed for loading, but a parking lot! One weekend of cutting trees and just a turn around there WILL make a huge difference. So nice to catch up. TY for all that you do Phil.
Hey there! I appreciate you following along this whole time. You're really seen the transformation. We've come a long way! We will get the turnaround done this year for sure. I think I'm going to rent an excavator here soon to dig up and knock down those trees. Stay tuned!
Looks great! I was able to find a few FREE wood kitchen tables for our gift shop which was great for our setup. My wife & I both have about 10year in retail so she was always moving product around. I can't even image selling that many trees after we did 175 this year. We do have so many wreath classes that drive gift shop sales & get ppl to spread the word that we are here.
I want to improve the shop more next year but we didn't have much time this year since it just arrived a couple weeks ago. I'd like to do more with shelves than tables to increase floor space. There were times the shop felt crowded. Wreath classes are a great money maker and people really seem to enjoy it. We did 5 classes this year, which was a few more than we did last year. We were concerned we wouldn't have enough greens for more classes, but turned out we had plenty. Originally my goal was to get to 1000 trees per year, and I still have that in my sights, but it'll be a combination of precut and u-cut to get there.
We got more trees this year, and our expectations for customer growth maybe were a little ambitious. We also had rain the first two weekends, and I think people are back to traveling more around Thanksgiving. Prices went up a modest amount, but we're still better than the tree lots in the city.
Phil do you guys offer trees with the root ball still attached? Or could I pre order a tree from you that way for next year? The channel and tree farm are looking great. Keep up the good job.
I don't have plans right now to do any live/dug trees. Its a lot of work, and I don't have any of the specialty equipment to do it. But I appreciate you giving it some consideration.
No sorry we're done for the year now. I was just about to make that FB post after checking YT comments. Sorry you missed it, but you're always welcome for a visit.
Well dang! I snooze, I lose I guess! Glad it was a good season. I'd love to come back out...let me know the next time you have a two-tractor project and I'll bring out the LX! 👍
I think I commented on one of your other videos (I hope I was nice). I see you are doing many great things on your lot but are you saying you do all of this to sell 415 trees (plus ancillary products)? Or is that 415 pre-cut plus choose and cut on your farm? I was in the business a long time ago. Our lot was much smaller than what you seem to have and we only had a couple of trailers to work out of. We pushed almost 3,000 trees through that lot each year. The way we did that is by making our urban lot look like a forest. By that I mean we put stakes in the ground and tied the trees to them to make them stand straight. When most people see a tree leaning, they walk by it thinking it will be that way in their home. Leaning trees against pallets is something that just bothers me. It does not make the trees look as good as they could and it leads to breakage, both reduce the price you should get. Staking trees properly is really not much more work than you are already doing. You seem like a good guy. I'm just trying to give a little help. Would love to talk via messenger about your operation.
yes we sell a couple hundred trees. we don't have urban traffic where we're located. Pallet racks with display arms work great. Me and my staff help people choose trees, so no issue there. Our entire property has slope so everything always looks like its leaning anyway. We've done single trees on posts, and still do some that way, but it labor intensive and between the wind and the slope we have much more damage with posts than the pallet racks.
Phil, how much were you selling your pre cut trees for? Like 8-9ft? Wholesale prices were SO high this year we came up with a plan to offer pre cuts without spending a fortune to get them from another farm. Our farm is in Dickerson MD across the river from Leesburg va.
@WoodsTreeFarm that's a great price!! We get called by many wholesale farms offering us trees and that was about the price l was getting quoted to purchase the trees for.
Yeah, I've heard of some wild prices. I paid retail prices for some 9+footers direct from a small farm in MD and still had plenty of room for a reasonable margin in my market.
Along with all the work involved in just the day-to-day work at property do you enjoy doing the youtube channel. Does it ever feel like its worth making the content.
Making content is another job. It can be rewarding, for example when people reach out and say how a certain video was helpful or relatable, but its work none the less.
@@WoodsTreeFarm Well add me to the list who enjoys all of your content. Would you mind telling me what kind of equipment your using for recording and editing.
