Selling Fresh And High Quality Fraser Firs Christmas Trees In Florida With The Help Of Work Campers
For Matt and Vicki Hulbert, their career as a work camping couple began with a big decision. “We literally decided to run away from home,” Matt says. “Our last kid was out of the house, and with the cost of living in Northern Virginia, our bank account was always in the red.”
“It was a 10 minute conversation, and a 15 minute decision,” Vicki says. “We bought an RV and got on the road.”
A chance encounter six years ago led to an invitation from Kathy Chefas of Hart-T-Tree Farms to sell Christmas trees at one of her seasonal lots in Southeast Florida. Since 1980, the Chefas family has operated a network of Christmas tree lots in Brevard, Broward and Palm Beach counties. Today, Hart-T-Trees operates more than a dozen lots open from the weekend before Thanksgiving to the week before Christmas every year.
Matt and Vicki operate the Margate location in Broward County, however they also help Kathy before the season starts, setting up lots and recruiting work campers to staff them. “We couldn’t operate without our work campers,” Kathy says. “We discovered them in the early 1990s, and realized they would let us greatly expand our business.”
The work campers park their rigs right at the lot, providing round-the-clock security. “They are a wonderful resource for us,” Kathy says.
The trees sold at the lots are all Fraser firs, the most popular variety of Christmas trees in America, with good reason, Kathy says. “They have short, soft needles and strong limbs, plus a deep green color and great aroma. They smell like Christmas.”
The trees are grown and harvested at Hart-T-Tree Farms in the North Carolina mountains. “My husband John grew up in a family that sold Christmas trees, and in the 1970s he started growing trees himself at a farm in Hart, Michigan,” Kathy says. “In the mid-80s we saw that the market demand for Fraser firs was growing so we decided to find out where they come from.”
Turned out, the Fraser fir, a relative of the balsam fir, is native only to the higher elevations of the southern Appalachian mountains, especially in North Carolina. “We went down to see a tree farm, and realized that we could be living in this beautiful place,” Kathy says, “so we moved our operation to Grassy Creek, NC, in Ashe County.”
Today, the Chefas family harvests some 10,000 to 15,000 trees ranging from 2 to 14 feet tall each year at their farm. “One of the things that makes the Hart-T-Trees so popular is that they don’t do a bulk harvest,” Matt Hulbert says. “Trees are cut as we need them so they arrive at the lots fresh. We’ve got 5 to 10 trucks bringing the trees down every week.”
“Each of our trees is baled and shipped within 72 hours of being cut,” Kathy says. “Freshness is what really sets us apart.” She comes to South Florida every year in October, while husband John remains behind in North Carolina overseeing the tree cutting operation.
In addition to the South Florida tree lots, Hart-T-Trees provides wholesale trees to upscale garden centers in the Eastern United States. The farm in North Carolina welcomes visitors who call ahead, but does not offer retail sales, although several other choose & cut tree farms in the area do.
During their years selling Christmas trees, Matt and Vicki have built up a base of repeat customers, almost an extended family. “This is the funnest job,” Vicki says, “even though we work our tails off. Our three dogs travel with us everywhere and we set them up in the Pug Pen, which is a favorite with kids. Everyone’s in a good mood when they’re looking for a Christmas tree.”
Although operating a tree lot is a short term commitment, it’s a lot of hard work, Matt says. “Getting ready for the tree season is the biggest game of Tetris I ever played. We work 10 to 12 hours days for weeks, starting Oct. 3. Our next day off is Christmas Day.”
For work campers who can handle the heavy schedule, the job can be a win-win. “The tree season wedges right into most work campers’ schedules,” Matt says. “A lot of campgrounds outside of Florida that use work campers have closed down for the winter. At the tree lots, they get a full hook-up and a pump out every week. And when they turn out the lights, it’s a 30 second commute home.”
Matt says that many people looking for a work camping position wait too long to apply. “If you want to work in January, start looking for that job in July,” he advises. “Try to stay a season ahead.”
For Matt and Vicki, who represent SE Publications when they aren’t selling trees, the decision to become full time work campers has been one they don’t regret. “For eight months a year, we travel wherever we want and make money in the process,” Matt says. “It’s given us the flexibility to go where and when we want.”
“It’s not so much the places we go as the people we meet and the experiences we have,” Vicki says. “The U.S. feels a lot smaller because we’ve made so many friends on the road. Our home, our RV, is wherever we are.”
Renee Wright
A graduate of Franconia College in Social Psychology, Renee has worked as Travel Editor for Charlotte Magazine and has written three travel guidebooks for Countryman Press among other writing assignments. She enjoys food and camping.
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Hart-T-Trees, growing premium, wholesale Fraser fir Christmas trees in the mountains of North Carolina. With almost 50 years of retail experience, they are experts with attention to detail, knowledge of Christmas trees, and strong work ethics.