The Nature Conservancy of Canada has an excellent suggestion for reusing your old Christmas tree by leaving it in your backyard over the winter. This will provide shelter and a resting place for birds and wildlife during the cold winter months.  You can even get the kids involved by spreading peanut butter in pinecones and tucking them into the branches, providing an additional source of food over the winter. And of course, suet hung by the bird feeder would make a great complement to the tasty tree treats. Imagine: Food & Warmth. 

In the spring, as leaves start to grow again, they you can chop up your Christmas tree’s branches and trunks then put them into yard waste or mulch them. If branches or the trunk are over 10cm in diameter, they can not go into the yard waste.  In that case, offer it as firewood to a friend with a fireplace.

Submitted by Debbie Coleman, a member of the Richmond Hill Garden & Horticultural Society