Wreath-Makers Caught in Season’s Rush

William Sellner is out the door before the crack of dawn. In the dark, he drives 42 miles across rural Washington County before turning his truck onto a logging road that leads deep into the northern woods.

Then, as his breathing forms steamy puffs in the cold air, he trudges into the forest to gather branch tips from fragrant balsam fir for Christmas wreaths that will be shipped across the country.

“It’s a pretty solitary type of job. Sometimes you see somebody in the morning, maybe a couple of hunters,” said Sellner, who works alone. “Then you won’t see anyone for the rest of the day.”

Such workers, called tippers or brushers, are hard at work to keep wreath-makers in the green this holiday season.

Nationwide, wreath-making is a growing industry as more and more people demand fresh greenery during the holidays, a tradition carried to all corners of the country by mail-order companies.

“Our Christmas tree sales are flat, but wreath sales keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger,” said Jim Corliss, president-elect of the National Christmas Tree Assn. Sales figures are hard to come by because many people make wreaths in their homes.

Morrill Worcester, whose company supplies L.L. Bean with wreaths and other balsam products, has grown from producing several thousand wreaths two decades ago to several hundred thousand today.

“The demand for wreaths is higher than it’s ever been,” said Worcester, owner of Worcester Wreath Co. in Harrington.

L.L. Bean gets credit for raising the national profile of wreaths when it began offering them in its catalog in 1983. Over the past decade, sales of balsam products have tripled, said spokeswoman Mary Rose MacKinnon.

In Maine, lower-cost wreaths from Canada have cut into the wholesale market, but the state still produces upward of 1.5 million wreaths a year, said Dugald Kell, whose company provides metal frames and decorations to wreath-makers.

The top wreath-making region is the Midwest, where upward of 5 million are produced each year, and the Pacific Northwest is not far behind, Kell said. New England accounts for about 2.5 million wreaths, and North Carolina about 1 million, he said.

Mail-order wreaths, which often sell for $40, are the biggest growth sector, Kell said. That price is about 10 times the cost of an undecorated wholesale wreath.

It’s a bit of a puzzle why demand for fresh wreaths continues to grow, while demand for live Christmas trees has remained flat.

Many people who display wreaths aren’t settling for only one. “Now they have one in every window,” Corliss said.

Maine’s wreath-making industry is centered in Washington County, along the state’s eastern edge, where there are plenty of balsam fir.

On the front line during the six-week season are the wreath-makers. Those with fast hands can make eight to 10 wreaths an hour, which translates to as much as $15 an hour at $1.50 per wreath.

“A couple of years ago, it seemed like a cottage industry,” said Sellner, a chef by trade. “Now it’s really growing.”