“We don’t have a lot of hoopla here,” Claudia Wassom of Tannenbaum Tree Farm and Greenhouse says. “But it's a great experience, and that's what people have said all these years.”

Claudia's husband, Tim, nods in agreement, adding, “Grandparents come with their kids, and sometimes they’ll bring out a family of 15-20, all taking turns with the hand saw to cut one Christmas tree.”

“But our tree is the last one we cut,” notes Claudia, who was raised in Germany. “It’s German tradition not to put up the tree until Christmas Eve.” 

The Wassoms have been raising choose-and-cut Christmas trees for 36 years. The farm is located in Lincoln County, South Dakota, just outside the small town of Lennox, with various trees, including Scotch pine, spruce (Colorado blue, Black Hills, Meyer and Serbian), white pine and Fraser fir. 

“Baum means tree in German,” Claudia says. “People think Tannenbaum is our last name, but it actually means spruce tree or Christmas tree. Hence the song ‘O, Tannenbaum.’” 

Beginnings with a father’s nudge

“In the beginning, it was just me,” Tim says. “I went to South Dakota State University (SDSU) and got a degree in horticulture focusing on plant pathology. When I started out, I worked for a landscape company and designed and installed lawn sprinklers. Later, I got a job at Hiebert Greenhouse in Sioux Falls, where I became their head grower.

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“This is before Claudia, and I didn’t know if I wanted to do what I did there. I found out about this man [with the] SDSU Extension who started to grow Christmas trees in a cemetery on the west side of Brookings. I brought my dad, who grew up on a farm near Laurens, Iowa, with me to go up and talk to him.

“My dad said, ‘You’re going to do this!’” Tim remembers with emotion. “We didn’t have a farm. Dad only had a couple of acres. I was a young man and paying off my student loans working at the greenhouse. I needed 20-40 acres, and Dad said, ‘We’ll look and figure it out. This will work.'”

Tim said he had ordered 3,000 trees before he bought land, running on both faith and hope. “We kept looking for land, and Dad ran across a place on the Tea/Ellis Road, which later became 57th Street in Sioux Falls. Two older brothers had the land. I remember going to get a loan, and I went in there [and] told them I wanted to plant Christmas trees, and they literally laughed me out of the room. They said, ‘You’re never going to make it by doing this.’ They shot me down, but we kept looking at other ways.” 

An arrangement was made on contract for the deed. In 1988, Tim planted the first 20 acres of trees on that property near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. 

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Then Tim met Claudia 

Claudia came to the U.S. as a high school student on exchange. After her German studies in agricultural engineering, she returned to a program through the University of Minnesota called Minnesota Agricultural Student Trainee (MAST) International.

“I received a master’s degree in animal science and first worked on a dairy farm in Spring Valley, Minnesota,” Claudia says. “Then, I came to the greenhouse where Tim worked in Sioux Falls, and I stayed.”

“When Claudia came, it made me want to stay longer,” Tim says. “I was at Hiebert for 28 years. Claudia was Hiebert’s production manager. We would time the crops, pick the varieties and do all the ordering.  Every year at Christmas, we’d grow 150,000 poinsettias from cuttings. We grew fall mums, lots of spring plants and 50,000 Easter lilies. All this while, I was also doing the Christmas tree business.”

Not for the faint of heart

“You have to like to be outside, for one thing,” Claudia says. “You have to be able to handle the hottest and coldest weather. We’d often be planting trees in the rain, or shearing them in 100 degrees, and you’d do it for hours. Then, to sell a tree, it could be 10 below. It's not for the faint of heart to do this. Weed control is probably the worst because trees are little, and weeds are tall.” 

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“In the spring, everything needs to be planted by hand,” Tim says. “When I started out, I went to an auction in Chester and bought a 1952 VAC Case tractor. I would cultivate with that. We planted with it. I had a little disc, too. We couldn’t find a planter, so we found a design, had someone weld it all together, and had our planter built.”

Once the tree is established, shearing fortifies the desired shape of a Christmas tree. “Shearing is done with a machine with a blade on the end and is very labor intensive,” Tim says. “If you make a mistake, you ruin the tree. I do this in July when it's hot. It would take me eight weeks besides our full-time job.”

Following close behind Tim’s shearing, Claudia hand-trims the vertical stem at the top of the trunk called the leader. 

“Because people want to put their angel on, we shape the tree and trim in a good way to promote a leader,” Claudia says. “The challenge is when birds make their nests and sit on all the surrounding tops. We used to tie branches up, but now we’ve learned how to trim and not force a leader, so we go with what the tree gives us. Some people want that leader, some don’t care. Some people put a cowboy hat on top and be done with it.”

“In the whole growing aspect, the climate has changed since I started, and that has been a challenge,” Tim says. “When I first started growing, I would grow certain varieties that would work mainly in Zone 4, our climate zone. Rain, back then, was more reliable. Now, we’re Zone 5 and always dealing with the weather, insects and fungal problems. If you get too much rain, it could kill the tree. One year, just before Thanksgiving, we were ready to start selling, and we got an inch and a half of solid ice on the trees. We hardly sold one tree that year because the ice didn’t come off until February.” 

In 2009, Sioux Falls was expanding rapidly, so the couple relocated their tree farm near Lennox. “When we moved here, we had just turned 50, and we were still young, so we started another tree farm,” Claudia chuckles.

“It takes six to seven years for a tree to be ready to cut. We started with the spruce, which is very slow to grow. We planted Fraser fir, because that’s what people like, but after a month, it rained 12 inches in 10 days, and 90% of the trees drowned. The next year, we planted the same kind of trees, and it got really hot and dry. They didn't like that either, and they burned up.” 

“So, in the first two or three years, we lost almost everything we planted,” Tim says. “I told Claudia, ‘Let's go back to what I know will work — the Scotch pine — because they can handle either the wet or the really dry. And I know they’re not going to fail us. And those trees made it.”

In 2016, the Wassoms had their first tree sales at the new farm. 

Putting knowledge and experience to work

Amid changes through the years, the Wassoms use their horticulture knowledge and plant pathology experience to engage in soil health for their trees. “You’re growing a crop that takes six to seven years, in theory — sometimes longer,” Tim says. “There have been a lot of bumps in the road over those years.” 

“We now have 5 acres of trees. If one gets cut, we plant right next to it,” Claudia says.

“When we plant the trees, I use a polymer dip on the roots,” Tim says. This gel-like substance holds moisture onto the root of the developing tree. “I mix a light fertilizer and some mycorrhiza, or fungus root, to enhance the root health of the plant and help fight against insects and disease. I studied all these fungi, and they molded my thinking. There is a connection between the fungi, the roots and the vigor of the trees. There are many types of mycorrhizae, and we see them coming up in the soil in the fall. It’s why we plant new trees at the base of the old trunk.”

Diversifying on the farm

In addition to choose-and-cut fresh trees, Tannenbaum farm has greenhouses with spring plants and vegetables. Claudia creates evergreen wreaths, swags and winter containers for sale. The couple has a hobby orchard, honeybees, and a variety of rare and unique trees. Tim also is a licensed arborist and works with the city of Sioux Falls to treat the invasive Emerald ash borer. 

“Tim starts everything from seed for the greenhouse,” Claudia says, including over 50 varieties of tomatoes.

“To enhance root development, we use soil with mycorrhiza. I don’t like to use any more chemicals than I have to, and do as much naturally,” Tim says. “I can manipulate things that I grow with temperature, water and fertilizer so I don’t have to use growth regulators. We’ve had people tell us their tomato plants reach 10 feet tall.”

A steward in horticulture

“I really enjoy doing horticulture. I enjoy the trees, and I’m always planting,” Tim says. “It's like a cycle, and I think it's a God-given passion. It's what I’m supposed to do. Roots are sort of like your faith. It has to be more important than what you see on the top.

“It is the same with people when you go through adversity. Trimming a tree promotes a healthier, thicker growth and a more productive tree. We go through lots of adversity in life, but it helps us go to the next step. That’s how I look at it.”

Christmas tree sales at Tannenbaum Tree Farm and Greenhouse begin the Friday after Thanksgiving through the weekend, Nov 29 to Dec 1, and Dec 6-8, as well as by appointment during the week by calling 605-647-9414. Trees are available on a first-come basis with no pre-tagging.

For more information, follow Tannenbaum Tree Farm on Facebook. To visit the farm, take the Lennox Exit 68 on Interstate 29, then travel west on 276th and south on 468th Avenue.