Why Is My Christmas Tree Not Drinking Water? 4 Common Reasons and What You Can Do to Save Your Festive Foliage
Christmas is right around the corner now, and nothing will dampen the spirit as much as your festive fir not making it to the big day. So, if you’re wondering why your Christmas tree is not drinking water, there may be a reason for that.
Having a real tree in your home is quite beautiful: you experience the woody smell of nature, you bring the outdoors indoors, and you get to embrace the tradition of decorating a tree in the way it all began (spoiler alert: at the beginning of Christmas’ origins, people didn’t use artificial trees.). Having a real tree in your home means you’ll need to brush up on your knowledge of Christmas tree care, and if your tree has stopped drinking water, it probably is a sign it needs a bit of nurturing.
I talked to a Christmas tree expert to uncover four of the most common reasons Christmas trees may stop drinking water. It’s probably not too late to help your tree, so read on.
1. Your tree’s base needs a fresh cut
(Image credit: Getty Images)
When the trunk of a Christmas tree is cut into, sap from the wood comes out. This operates as a natural mechanism in the wild to preserve the health of the tree, so when the tree gets injured, it seals over the wound using sap.
If your Christmas tree isn’t drinking water and you didn’t inspect its base for sap, there may be a sap seal blocking the base, meaning your Christmas tree isn’t able to drink. To remedy this, you need to cut a few inches off of the base of your Christmas tree’s trunk and then place it immediately back into water before the seal can begin to form again.
Tamara Hogan, plant expert at Fast Growing Trees, says, “If you get your Christmas tree and the store didn’t freshly cut its base before you took it home, cut some off of it yourself. This reopens the cells for the tree to take up water.”
Using a handheld saw like the fiskars handsaw for fresh wood from Amazon and a tape measure, cut 3 to 4 inches off of the base of your Christmas tree by sawing in a backwards and forward motion. Placing a tarp underneath your tree can be useful, too, to help collect sawdust and make sure your tree doesn’t gather dirt on its needles. Amazon’s Xpose safety multipurpose protective green poly tarp will do the trick.
“Even if you have had the tree at home for some time and haven’t put it in water yet, trimming that base will allow for the callused closed-off bottom to reopen,” says Tamara, so it isn’t too late to remedy this problem.
Don’t forget to wear gloves to protect your hands from sap while cutting your tree. The Vgo chainsaw gloves on Amazon are a great choice.
2. Excessive heat is dehydrating your tree
(Image credit: Future)
Look around the room where your Christmas tree is. Is it placed near a source of winter heating, such as a radiator or a fireplace? Winter heating can damage many things, including your sofa and your Christmas tree.
“When we bring Christmas trees indoors where we are often cranking up the heat for the winter, they are exposed to hot and dry environments,” says Tamara. “Be cautious about keeping your Christmas tree by vents, radiators, or fireplaces that may cause the tree to dry out faster.”
A drying-out Christmas tree will begin to turn brown, start shedding needles, and eventually smell bad before dying, so near a heat source is one of the places you should not put a Christmas tree for sure.
The simple solution is to ensure that your Christmas tree stays at least 4 feet away from a heat source at all times and that you water it correctly going forward. If your tree isn’t already incredibly brown and beyond saving, it should begin to perk up once it’s moved elsewhere in the room and given proper hydration.
3. You didn’t give your tree enough water when it first came home
(Image credit: Mary Wadsworth. Design: Gill and Jonny Martin)
A freshly cut Christmas tree will be very thirsty, requiring a lot of water in its base to remain fresh and strong. It’s a common mistake to give a new Christmas tree a small amount of water, like a small daily top-up, instead of extra to account for the fact that it’ll be dehydrated from the journey home. This mistake can cause your tree to stop drinking, as a tree that’s already dehydrated to begin with may be too weak to take up water. But fear not, for it’s more than likely not too late to revive your dying Christmas tree.
“A common mistake I see is that people give their Christmas tree a small amount of water and then don’t revisit it until few days later,” says Tamara. “By the time water is given to the tree again it has stopped drinking and then needles start to drop. The base may have also resealed from the initial cut and won’t drink, as so little water was put into the tree’s stand to drink in the first place. So keep your tree with plenty of water at all times once you set it up in the tree stand.”
The best way to keep an eye on whether your Christmas tree is receiving the correct amount of water is to stick a moisture meter like the Dr.Meter soil moisture meter from Amazon into its soil. This little gadget will tell you when the soil of your tree is dry, damp, moist, or waterlogged on a scale of one to ten, so you won’t risk under or overwatering your tree again. It’s ideal for every type of Christmas tree, so be sure to give it a go.
You can also use a self-watering system that will incrementally water your Christmas tree for you, so the worry doesn’t even have to stay in your mind. We particularly like the automatic Christmas tree watering system and the santa’s tree helper automatic Christmas tree watering system with enhanced liner, both from Amazon.
4. Your tree is actually getting enough water
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Lastly, your tree might not be taking up water right now because you are giving it the exact amount it needs. That’s right, you might not be doing anything wrong.
“Another reason why Christmas trees stop drinking is because they have been watered correctly,” says Tamara. “After the initial first few days to a week of a tree chugging water, you’ll notice that it can stop abruptly. That’s because the tree is properly hydrated at that point and will start to take up water slower.”
If your tree is showing signs of dehydration like dry, brittle drooping branches, dropping needles, and browning, your tree is experiencing a problem, but if your tree seems healthy and a moisture meter indicates that the soil is at a good level of dampness (7-8), then your tree is happy, healthy, and ready for some festive Christmas decorating.
FAQs
What are the other reasons a Christmas tree might stop drinking water?
There are many reasons why a Christmas tree may stop drinking water, from sap sealing its base to being overly dehydrated, but another factor impacting a Christmas tree’s ability to drink is its age.
Tamara Hogan, plant expert at Fast Growing Trees, says, “If the tree has been up for a while and isn’t drinking anymore, the biggest reason is likely age. Trees need roots. The way that the tree drinks without them is very much like a person sucking up water through a straw. As the leaves pull for water, the trunk sucks it up and delivers it throughout the plant. But without roots to supplement the rest of the things a tree needs, it is slowly going to shut down.”
If your Christmas tree is a relatively new addition to your home, it’s more than likely one of the other reasons discussed here causing your tree to not drink water.
