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December 2025: Fir or Spruce?
- TreesLexington Staff
- 3 days ago
- 2 min read
By Greg Doyle and Andy Mead
Did you have a Christmas tree this year? Do you know the species? Many of us who rush out to buy a tree that has been shipped to a convenient nearby lot or box store end up with some kind of fir or spruce. Both are evergreens. Fir trees belong to the genus Abies and Spruce are the genus Picea.
The purpose of this month’s feature is to tell you a couple of simple ways to determine which species you have. (We also will suggest a fishy way to dispose of the tree after the holidays and provide a website.
In the foreground of the top photo is a Fraser Fir (Abies fraseri) with a Colorado Blue Spruce (Picea pungens) in the background. Fraser firs
like the higher altitudes in the southern Appalachians and are facing threats there from logging, habitat destruction and an invasive insect, the Balsam Woolly Adelgid. As the name suggests, the Colorado Blue Spruce is a native of the Rocky Mountains. It doesn’t like our soil type and often is killed by Rhizosphaera needlecast, a fungal disease that causes needles to turn brown and fall off. We don’t recommend planting it here.ich tree did you have this year?
The easiest way to know if you have a spruce is to pull off a needle and try to roll it between your fingers. If it won’t roll, it is a fir, perhaps a fraser fir, which has flat needles. If it rolls, it could be a spruce, such as Colorado blue spruce.
Fir trees have cones that point upward (except for the Douglas Fir, which isn’t a real fir anyway). Fraser fir cones tend to fall from the tree in pieces, so you are unlikely to find cones under a fir.
Spruce tree cones hang down from their branches and can be found on the ground under the tree.
Disposing of this year’s tree:
If you have Lexington city trash services, they will pick up your tree from the curb and compost them. The last day for tree pickup is January 30th. With a little effort, you can give your tree a second life as underwater fish habitat. Each year the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources designates collection points for discarded trees, then drops them in rivers to provide fish shelters. The Fayette County site is Jacobson Park. This year’s deadline is January 15th.
Go here to learn more: Christmas Tree Recycling - Kentucky Department of Fish & Wildlife
Cut your own next year?
The increasing popularity of “fake” trees have hurt Christmas tree farmers. We like real trees here at Trees Lexington and offer you this list of farms to store away until next season. Here are links from the Kentucky Christmas Tree Association to a list of member farms and information on the different species of trees you might find:
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