Now that the holiday season is over the annual question of what to do with your Christmas tree has come up once again.
But instead of using it to create an epic bonfire or simply leaving it out for curbside pickup, the Nature Conservancy of Canada is suggesting Canadians put them in their own backyard.
NCC’s senior conservation biologist Dan Kraus says leaving it in your backyard over the winter can provide many benefits for backyard wildlife.
Your tree can provide important habitat for bird populations during the winter months, especially on cold nights and during storms.
NCC is a not-for-profit private land conservation group who say propping it up near another tree, or against a fence or next to your garden lets nature recycle the tree on its own.
By spring, the tree will have lost most of its needles, and then you can cut the tree branches, lay them where spring flowers are starting to emerge in your garden and place the trunk on soil. Kraus says by fall the branches and trunk will begin to decompose and turn into soil.
