East Feliciana Christmas tree farm celebrates 25 years in business

Story by Alena Maschke 

Growing up on a dairy farm in nearby St. Helena Parish, Lisa Peairs has fond childhood memories of going into the woods with her family to pick out a Christmas tree every year. What the tree looked like was almost secondary, it was the family tradition that made it special. 
 
“I remember one time we ended up with a holly tree,” Peairs said, laughing. “The experience was more important than having the perfect tree.”
 
At Windy Hills Farm in Ethel, La., Peairs and her husband Ricky are hoping to give that same kind of family experience to their customers, who usually come as a family and pick out their tree, which they can either cut themselves or have cut by the farm’s seasonal workers. 
 
Like the Price family, who came out on a rainy Sunday afternoon to find the perfect tree for their home in nearby Zachary.
 
Melissa Price remembers visiting a tree farm in Zachary when she was younger. After it closed, she said, the family switched to artificial trees. This year, they decided to get a real tree again and after learning about Windy Hill Farms, made the trip to Ethel to pick one out.
 
What makes a real tree so special? “The smell,” Price said. “And just the experience, the memories of coming to cut it.”
 
Social media has been a boon for the farm, Peairs said. 
 
The couple planted their first tree in 1999 and at the time, they had to get creative to market their business on a shoestring budget. They put up signs on the side of the road, carefully noting down each sign’s location so they could be picked up later. “They were expensive!” Ricky Peairs remembers. 
 
They also noted down each customer’s name and address, so they could send them a card once the next season rolled around. Lisa Peairs remembers sitting in the freezing cold, surrounded by the fledgling rows of trees, making sales and writing cards for next year.
 
Since then, the couple has built a shed in which to make sales and construct wreaths and garlands, and most of its customers learn about the farm on Facebook or other social media platforms.
 
Despite this growth, a quarter century into their farm’s existence, the Peairs are happy to remain a small family business. “We don't want to be the Walmart or Christmas trees,” Peairs said. Instead, they’re focused on repeat business. “A lot of them come back every year,” she said of their customers. “We're seeing the second, third generation.”
 
But their marketing strategy and infrastructure aren’t the only things that changed over the past 25 years. 
 
Many traditional Christmas trees, firs in particular, don’t do well in the southern Louisiana climate, they are cut and brought down from Tennessee and North Carolina to be sold on seasonal tree lots. Instead, Christmas tree farms in the Deep South grow cypress trees, which have one significant side benefit: they don’t shed. 
 
Over the years, the types of cypress trees available have changed. When the Peairs first started their farm, they primarily grew Leland cypress, a highly adaptable, fast growing evergreen that performs well in the hot South Louisiana climate.
 
But the Leland cypress had its drawbacks compared to the Christmas trees imported from further up north. It didn’t have the smell many people expect in a live tree and its limbs tended to droop more easily, making them difficult to decorate.
 
Over time, the Peairs began planting more Murray cypress, a new variety of the traditional Leland cypress that was cultivated to have more Christmas tree-like qualities — an herbal smell and stronger limbs.
 
This year, Lisa Peairs said, their Carolina Sapphire variety — another type of cypress with a slightly blue sheen to it — has been performing particularly well.
 
“Those have just been massive this year,” Peairs said. Because of its slightly blue color, the Carolina Sapphire had been more difficult to sell in the past. But the variety performed exceptionally well through last year’s drought, Peairs noted, making the lush, tall trees stand out this year.
 
“Last year was a really, really bad year. Probably the worst we've had,” Peairs said. Her husband Ricky estimates that Windy Hills Farm lost several hundred trees to the drought. But the couple is hopeful that the farm will make a full recovery. “I think by next year, we’ll be good,” Peairs estimated.
 
And while the farm does the bulk of its business in the first two weeks of December, running a Christmas tree farm is a year-round operation. In January, the Peairs will start planting new trees to replace the ones they sold for this year’s holidays. 
 
Lisa still works full-time as a veterinarian, so her husband Ricky, who retired from his role as an operator at Dow Chemicals, spends his summer tending to the trees, making sure the soil is well fertilized, weeds are removed and there aren’t any fungi interfering with the trees’ health.
 
The couple had only been married a few months before starting the farm, and both admit they had no idea how much work it would be. “I just thought it would be neat,” Lisa Peairs said of her dream to have a Christmas tree farm. Looking at her husband, surrounded by thousands of Christmas trees and with Santa Claus and his elves nearby, Peairs jokes: “This is the last thing he ever agreed to.” He smiles and, moments later, returns his attention to constructing a 25-foot garland.