Sugar Water for Christmas Trees

Just what does sugar water for Christmas trees do? Keep reading to find out.

If you, like many, are a huge fan of having a live Christmas tree as opposed to an artificial one during the holiday season, then you know how important it is to properly care for the tree to ensure it will last the entire season.

What you don't want is for the needles of the tree to get brittle and fall off before the season is over. And who wants the mess? Pine needles are notoriously difficult to clean out of carpeting and the cracks of hardwood flooring. So, just how do you help prolong the life of your Christmas tree? Well, some say adding sugar water to the reservoir helps.

Advocates of using sugar water for Christmas trees say that the mixture acts as a sort of an artificial sap or food for the tree, thereby, helping the tree to live longer. Most who use sugar water for their trees use a mixture rate of one cup of sugar for every gallon of water added to the reservoir.

You want to make sure you add the sugar water into the container from which you are watering your tree and stir it up until the sugar is dissolved before adding it to the water reservoir in your Christmas tree stand. If you don't do this and simply add the sugar directly to the reservoir, all the sugar will just sink to the bottom and be ineffective.

The easiest recipe is to dissolve one cup of sugar for every gallon of water that was described above. There are, however, a few recipes that some say help prolong the life of a Christmas tree even longer. Here are a few:

The following sugar water recipe has a few more ingredients that is said to act as a chlorophyll substitute for your Christmas tree.

• Two gallons of hot water
• Two cups of corn syrup
• Two ounces of chlorine bleach
• 1/2 teaspoon of Epsom salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of Borax
• One teaspoon of Iron (the kind you can find at any garden center)

Mix the hot water, corn syrup, chlorine bleach and Epsom salts together until thoroughly combined. Then, add the Borax and iron and stir until dissolved. This mixture is said to mimic chlorophyll, helping your tree last longer. Some say that this mixture, when added daily to the water reservoir of your Christmas tree stand, also helps to make the tree less dry.

The following recipe is a bit more user-friendly and includes items you probably already have in your home.

• One gallon of hot water
• Four teaspoons of sugar
• Four teaspoons of vinegar
• Four teaspoons of chlorine bleach

Just mix it all together and add it to the water reservoir. For this recipe, the bleach helps to inhibit mold, mildew and bacterial growth, the sugar acts as food for the tree and the vinegar adds acid to the water. Adding a bit of acid to the water, it will help the tree soak the water up more easily.

There are plenty of other things you can do to keep your Christmas tree healthy and your family safe during the holiday season:

• Keep the tree away from all sources of heat – This includes:
  • Fireplaces
  • Heating vents or registers
  • Electrical outlets
  • Lights not rated for Christmas trees, such as floor lamps.

Heat sources, even if the heat nearby is low, dries out the needles. And if the needles on your tree are drying and falling off, it's a sure sign that your tree is dying at a fast rate.

Finally, keep in mind that some have a lot of luck with using sugar water to help prolong the life of their Christmas trees, while others haven't. No matter what you do, unless you buy a tree with the root ball still attached, it will eventually dry out and die. So, keep it well-watered and away from heat sources throughout the holiday season.

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