Alex Slitz/Daily NewsStuart Kirby, of Bowling Green, holds his seven month old daughter Sofia Bell Kirby as he looks through Christmas trees at a live tree lot on Campbell Lane next to Buckhead Square on Saturday.

As the holidays approach, retailers are not the only businesses that depend on Christmas sales.

A few local tree farmers are setting up operations this year and hoping people shop for a real Christmas tree.

“We just have the smell of Christmas,” said Mike Salsman, co-owner of a Christmas tree stand on Campbell Lane between Starbucks and Buckhead Square. “Those are the kinds of things people don’t forget. You appeal to the senses.”

This is the first time Salsman and co-owner Paxx Burk have opened the business in Bowling Green. They are selling trees that are grown in Michigan and shipped to Bowling Green.

The business opened Tuesday with more than 400 trees, and the owners expect to have a total of 800 by Christmas Eve. The business is a spin-off of Morgan’s Produce, a Simpson County-based business Burk runs with his daughter.

As for the tree business, “We’re happy with the location we’ve got,” he said. “We’ve got a tremendous traffic count right here.”

The trees come in different types, shapes and sizes and cost between $20 and $100.

“Traditionally, everybody wants a live tree,” Burk said. “Taking a local poll ourselves, we’ve had pretty good feedback.”

In fact, workers sold a tree this week before the lot officially opened. The lot is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. Sundays. The business also sells tree stands and tree preservers.

“The plastic (tree) from China is no fun,” Burk said.

Across town, David Hartman has been running his tree farm business for 12 years and growing trees for about 20 years.

“Most trees are nine or 10 years old before you can sell them at 6 feet,” said Hartman, owner of Hartman’s Tree Farm on Old Tram Road. “So it’s a long-term investment.”

Hartman owns about five acres of trees and, this year, he’s able to sell about 150 to 200 trees. He has received several inquiries so far this year and expects sales to be good compared with last year. The economy caused sales to tank about 40 percent last Christmas, he said.

Hartman will open his Christmas tree farm next weekend, and it will be open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“I enjoy it,” said Hartman, a retired chemistry professor from Western Kentucky University. “I don’t make a lot of money, but everybody’s in a good mood at Christmastime.”

Planting weather also has been good this year. Hartman plants about 1,500 trees each year – sometimes 90 percent of his trees survive and sometimes only 5 percent live. One year, a grass fire killed about 1,500 trees on his lot and, in 1999, a severe drought killed several 5-foot and 6-foot trees, Hartman said.

But this year’s crop has an 88 percent to 90 percent survival rate, Hartman said.

In fact, the winter months are an excellent time to begin tree work, said Adam Crafton, owner of Bushels and Blooms Nursery in Franklin.

“All the sap and everything has left the tree, and it’s a good time to do structural pruning and crown cleaning,” he said. “It’s a lot less stressful on the tree.”

Crafton does not sell Christmas trees, but several people purchase gift certificates from his business around the holidays, he said.

This year, business has been “pretty good,” he said. “It can always be better, but I can’t complain.”