CLEVELAND, Ohio — For many households that do not otherwise keep plants, a cut Christmas tree may be the only one they actively care for all year, watered daily and monitored carefully.

And every December, families arrive at Sugargrove Tree Farm in Ashland, ready to make a once-a-year decision: which tree will carry their lights and ornaments and serve as a backdrop for holiday selfies. I recently spoke Bob Smith, who owns and operates the cut-your-own tree farm, about his tree care advice.

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Smith has a short list of rules for customers once their tree is home, and the most important one is simple.

“Water,” he says. “Always keep it watered. The bottom of the trunk should never be exposed to air.” When a freshly cut tree sits dry for too long, sap seals the cut surface, forming a scab that prevents water uptake.

If a tree has been without water for more than six or seven hours—for example, if you store it in the garage for a few days before bringing it in the house—Smith recommends making a fresh cut before putting it back in water. One to two hours of exposure is usually fine; six or seven hours is not.

Smith was also eager to bust some persistent Christmas tree care myths. Adding Sprite or aspirin to the water doesn’t help, Smith says, and worrying about water temperature is unnecessary. Warm water quickly cools to room temperature anyway.

“Tap water is fine,” he says. “The tree just needs hydration.”

Placement in the house, on the other hand, is important. A hot air register right next to the tree is “really, really bad,” Smith says, and dries it out regardless of how much water is in the stand. Cooler conditions are best.

He has one longstanding customer who sets up her Fraser fir in a three-season room and keeps it there until April, finally taking it out when the daffodils bloom.

Tree species also plays a major role in how long a tree stays fresh. Norway spruce, while classic in appearance, has inherently poor needle retention and will often drop needles within two weeks, no matter how well it’s cared for. Fir trees perform much better indoors, and among them, the Canaan fir is rapidly gaining in popularity.

Pronounced “ka-NANE,” the Canaan fir is growing rapidly in popularity as a Christmas tree and has an origin story with deep Ohio roots (pun intended).

The tree takes its name from Canaan Valley in West Virginia, where it was first identified, and its development as a Christmas tree accelerated in the 1950s through work at The Ohio State University. That early research helped establish Canaan fir as a reliable option for growers, combining good needle retention, strong branching, and most importantly for growers like Smith, the ability to grow in clay soils.

Many landscape plants are propagated from cuttings to ensure genetic consistency, but Smith explained that Canaan fir trees are grown from seed, and Ohio plays a significant role in that process.

Seed orchards near the OSU Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster produce Canaan fir seed from the best of the original “mother trees” bred by Dr. Brown’s team. That seed is sent to Weyerhaeuser, a large forestry company based in Washington state, where it is stored, tested for viability, and grown into seedlings by request from tree farms like Sugargrove.

When Smith receives them, the trees are already two years old and about 18 to 20 inches tall. From there, he grows them on for roughly eight more years before they’re ready to sell.

“That’s a decade of work for one tree,” Smith says.

That timeline helps explain why growing conditions matter so much. National data and maps of Christmas tree production show that Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon and Washington produce 80 to 90 percent of the trees grown in the U.S., with just a few counties accounting for half the total.

According to Smith, trees grown in North Carolina can reach six feet in five years thanks to its ideal climate and sandy soils, half the time it takes in Ohio’s heavier clay soils.

Sugargrove supplements some of its stock from North Carolina, but Ohio-grown trees remain central to the farm. Smith grows Canaan fir, Fraser fir, Norway spruce and white pine.

(However, the early bird gets the tree; Sugargrove began selling trees on Black Friday and sold out by December 14 this year.)

Each species has tradeoffs. Fraser firs are popular for their shape and sweet scent, though Smith notes they’re less tolerant of stress than Canaan firs. White pine can be a good option for lighter decorating styles.

“Think 1950s,” Smith says, “Popcorn strings, tinsel, and lights,” but no heavy ornaments so as to avoid the Charlie Brown tree effect.

Fragrance can also be a factor in tree choice. Smith jokes that old-fashioned blue spruce (which he no longer sells due to diminishing demand) smells like cat urine to him, but he acknowledges some people associate it strongly with Christmas.

Canaan fir has a citrus-like scent, while Fraser fir has a sweeter scent “that smells like Christmas” to him. Pines do not have much fragrance on their own, but combined with garlands and wreaths, a home can still achieve that treasured holiday smell.

Many families debate whether to get a real or artificial tree, but there are differences even among real trees.

Choosing a Christmas tree from an Ohio tree farm supports land that stays in agricultural production rather than being developed. When a tree from a tree farm is cut, it is replaced with a young tree that absorbs carbon as it grows.

Compared with a natural tree shipped from Oregon or the Pacific Northwest, a locally grown tree avoids thousands of miles of transportation and supports regional agriculture. And if a cut tree is composted after the holidays, its carbon is returned to the soil.

Whether a Christmas tree is the only plant you’ll have all year or just another member of your plant family, the care comes down to: choose a species that fits your home and decorating style, keep it away from heat, and above all, keep it watered.

And if you choose a tree from an Ohio tree farm, you continue a cycle that can begin with an Ohio-grown seed and ends, years later, at the center of a family’s Christmas story.