Goodbye to all that

From Monday, January 3rd to Saturday, January 15th the City of Philadelphia’s Christmas tree recycling program will be in operation. Recycling your tree actually isn’t all that simple; you’ll have to wrestle your tree back into the car and take it to one of three city recycling locations. The one closest to me is at the Domino Lane transfer station in Roxborough.

Some experts recommend cutting the branches off your tree and laying them on your garden beds to protect the plants from winter cold and frost heaves. I tried this once, and when spring came I ended up having to deal with a lot of wet and slimy (but not even slightly decomposed) branches that didn’t go very willingly or graciously into my trash cans. As for my protected garden, it didn’t seem to fare any differently than in other years.

If anyone has ideas for reusing retired Christmas trees, or otherwise keeping them out of a landfill, please share!