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Owners Bill and Mary Apperson have been selling Christmas trees for 40 years.
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Each year on November 1, locals seeking to reserve a tree can come to the farm and place an item that connects them to the tree.
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Mary Apperson standing in front of the "Tree House," the office for purchasing trees and wreaths.
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Locals seeking to reserve a tree can come to the farm and place an item that connects them to the tree.
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Winter berries are used in wreaths sold in the "Tree House."
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If you happen to find yourself on Fenton Mill Road during the holiday season, don’t be surprised by the oddities you’ll spot affixed to the pines and firs in the fields at Mill Farm Christmas Trees. It’s a long-standing holiday tradition that owner Bill Apperson calls “Marking Your Trees.”
Each year on November 1, locals seeking to reserve a tree can come to the farm and place an item that connects them to the tree. Apperson has seen anything from wrist watches to neckties dangling from the branches of his trees. It’s a first-come, first-served process based on the honor system.
“I don’t try to keep up with it all. The marker has to be something that you can identify. We’ll have 50 decorated trees out there in the field,” he says. “We had someone who marked with artificial owls on the top of their trees. They would be out there hooting at night. They were battery powered and the eyes would glow. I liked it.”
“We had two trees last year decorated with solar powered lights and the tree would be out there flashing and that’s all right with me. We don’t run anyone off. Once you have a tree marked, I don’t care if you sleep beside it.”
He’s even seen people come out with their families and picnic beside their trees.
Apperson loves seeing families walk his property and seeing photographers decorate his trees and hold shoots. He says he’s also had some of the same customers for over two decades. But what gives him joy is providing a top-notch product at a reasonable price.
The farm’s most popular Christmas trees, 8-foot Frasier Firs, go for $40-45, which is 50 percent less than what you’re likely to find with other vendors. But even if the price was identical to the market, the best thing about buying a Mill Farm tree is that Apperson knows trees.
Apperson is a forester by trade who worked for the department of forestry for 50 years. That’s how he got into this business. In the late 1970s, he stumbled upon Christmas tree farming after a series of queries at the department of forestry.
“I worked at the department of forestry as a forester. We were getting questions about how to grow Christmas trees. So I asked the powers that be if I could plant a few and study them and see what kind of luck we had. So we put a few rows [on the farm] and I learned how to grow them. And people would stop in and ask if they could buy them. So I asked the department if I could sell them. They said as long as you don’t cross the line. You don’t own a farm until after five o’clock,” says Apperson.
It took Apperson five years to get his first complete field of trees ready for sale—some trees grow up to one foot per year and others just six inches—but he and his wife have never looked back. They love putting smiles on faces and serving families at one of the most revered times of the year.
“We’ve been selling Christmas trees for 40 years. We’re unique because we’re choose-and-cut. We pride ourselves in having a top quality product that’s affordable. And third, is service. No one has ever come here looking for a tree that hasn’t left here with a tree,” says Apperson. “That’s important to us. I pride myself in that.”
Mill Farm Christmas Trees • 4900 Fenton Mill Road • Williamsburg, Virginia 23188 • 757-566-2035