Western North Carolina Christmas tree to appear at State Capitol

A Christmas tree farm from western North Carolina affected by Hurricane Helene was selected to have one of its trees appear at the North Carolina State Capitol for Christmas 2024.

Tim and Bonnie Moser of Shepherd’s Way Farms, Laurel Springs, Alleghany County, were on hand Tuesday after presenting the tree to Gov. Roy Cooper.

The Fraser fir tree is about 18-19 years old.

According to their website, shepherdswayfarmsnc.com Bonnie’s great-great-great-grandfather, John Finley Shepherd, started a farm in 1845 but didn’t sell Christmas trees. In the mid-1970s, her grandfather, George Washington Norfleet Shepherd, initially started growing White Pine trees but soon switched to Fraser Firs.

When George died in 1988, the remaining 120 acres of farmland passed to his daughter, Sally Shepherd Dickens, Bonnie’s mother. Bonnie went on to meet Tim, who was growing trees on Sally’s farmland.

In 2006, Tim planted the first trees as the primary lessee of the remaining 120 acres in Laurel Springs. In 2007, Tim and Bonnie named their venture Shepherd’s Way Farms and opened their first retail lot in Raleigh to sell directly to their customers.

The couple married two years later, in 2008, and began adding pumpkins as a rotational crop and produce and hemp.

Another North Carolina Christmas tree, also a Fraser fir, will grace the White House Blue Room this year. North Carolina produces 20% of the real Christmas trees in the US, ranking the state second in the nation in number of trees harvested and cash receipts. More than 1,300 growers in far Western North Carolina counties grow Fraser firs, including Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Madison, Mitchell, Swain, Transylvania, Watauga and Yancey counties.

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