SASKATOON -- For those in Saskatoon who are still waiting to pick up a Christmas tree, you might want to hurry.

Nikki van Duyvendyk owns Dutch Growers in Saskatoon and says “every year we do end up selling out before Christmas” but has noticed a different trend in 2020.

“We’ve noticed that people have been getting their trees weeks earlier than they normally do, so that is going to make things run out very early this year,” she said.

Van Duyvendyk says it’s “sort of a guess” when it comes to how many trees to order every year because “you never know what what everybody's going to be doing”.

“You never want to order more product and have to throw it away, so you have to be strategic in everything you do,” she said. “You want to increase your numbers a little bit, but you don't want to increase them too much where there could be waste. It'd be terrible to be throwing away trees at the end of a season.”

Patrcia Munroe with Floral Acres says they’ve moved up their second order of trees to meet the demand.

“It did move a lot faster a lot earlier this year than it did last which was a bit of a surprise to us,” she said.

“Maybe people are worried about the COVID and things shutting down again, so they decided to pop out and get them earlier so they made sure they had one. It's a different year this year, so it's hard to tell what's influencing things.”

“Everybody's staying home, they're buying more indoor plants are buying everything for their home,” said Steve Wilson with Wilson’s Greenhouse. “I think Christmas trees is next on the list, and (sales have) been really brisk.”

Wilson says a because it takes “about 10 to 12 years to bring a tree to market”, a tree shortage in North America due to the 2008 market crash in the United States may factor into how quickly they’re being sold.

“In 2008 when the U.S. market crashed, Christmas tree farms couldn't get loans to start planting new Christmas trees,” he said.

“Two years ago they started running out of Christmas trees, and they had no resupply, so now they moved to the Canadian market. They're paying a premium dollar for it, so they've seen an increase in cost for Christmas trees, and everything's moving to the U.S. market.”

Van Duyvendyk’s advice is simple.

“Just get your tree,” she said. “You don't want to wait, you don't want to be disappointed. There's been too many disappointments this year.”

Wilson says despite his store having “one of the largest selections of Fraser Firs and Balsam Firs” in western Canada, supplies could run out.

“You'll want to get out and get your tree sooner than later, because you might not have anything in a couple weeks.”