Every December, Christmas trees start popping up all over the place in homes, in storefronts, and on tree lots. But who makes sure the trees grown up in the mountains get to other parts of the state? And what happens the rest of the year on a Christmas tree farm? Rusty Barr has the answer to both questions. As the owner of Barr Evergreens, he makes sure Christmas trees (and more) show up around the state and beyond, and he stays busy year-round, well before the trees reach urban tree lots in mid- to late-November.
Making Holidays Brighter Both Near and Far
Barr Evergreens is a second-generation Christmas tree farm in Ashe County. Wilson Barr started the farm; his son Rusty took over in 2008.
Rusty says Wilson started growing white pine Christmas trees around 1960, “and then he got the fever for Christmas trees after he sold them.”
Barr Evergreens began soon after, with the farm mostly selling to private garden centers and to civic groups that resold the trees for holiday fundraisers. In the 1990s, the company started supplying East Coast landscapers and nurseries. Of the farm’s 500 acres, Rusty says about 400 are Christmas trees, including 115 acres of nursery stock.
Over time, the farm has added to its list of merchandise. They now sell a few different types of trees, nursery plants, seedlings, and pumpkins. “There’s not a dull day at the tree farm,” says Rusty.
Since 1977, Barr Evergreens has also sold Christmas trees in Wilmington. It began when someone told Rusty’s father that there weren’t any Christmas trees down in town.
He says his dad, being someone who liked the coast, thought “that’ll be a great opportunity to go to the beach after a little harvest season and sell some trees.”
Five decades later, they’re still bringing acres of Christmas trees down to New Hanover County.
The Barrs have sold Christmas trees in Wilmington for so long, that they have long-term customers. Rusty says “a lot of the people are coming back. Now their kids are coming to buy trees from us.”
Buying a Lot of Their Own in Wilmington
The company’s current Wilmington tree lot is two acres. They sell pumpkins there from the end of September to Halloween. Christmas tree season begins in November and ends whenever the last tree has been sold.
For years, Barr Evergreens rented lodgings for the staff working in Wilmington.
“We were renting AirBnBs to stay over the season or motel rooms of extended stay motel type deals and, you know, spending a lot of money doing that,” says Rusty.
Several years ago, they purchased the lot with a loan from Skyline National Bank and the Center’s Loan Participation Program, which provides additional funding on top of the bank loan. The LPP funds allow businesses to borrow extra capital at the same lending rates as their bank loan.
Skyline is one of several banks that partner with the Rural Center as part of LPP. Earlier this year, the bank was named Community Bank of the Year at the 2026 Rural Summit in part because of the strong partnership. James Young, senior vice president of Skyline, says the program means a lot for small businesses.
“I see it in our communities. I see the jobs that it’s creating. I feel it in the relationships of our customers that their balance sheet is better because they haven’t had to tie up so much capital in an asset to help their business work.”
Now that the business has its own lot, Barr says, “We’re able to put some of our infrastructure there that we use to sell the trees like shade, tents, and leave them set up because it was a really great undertaking to go down there. We set up these buildings to display our wreaths and garlands in to keep them out of the sun. So we’re able to put up some of those structures and take the shade cloths off of them when we leave and they just sit there and wait on us to come back.”
Owning their own lot means the company could also build on it. Along with structures to sell merchandise, they’ve also built dorm-like housing that can accommodate around a dozen employees.
The lot’s structures also allow Barr Evergreens to store items on the premises instead of having to haul them to and from Ashe County. The lot’s size also allows room for 50 parked cars and special cozy touches, like a walking trail, a hot chocolate bar, and more.
The Barrs have sold Christmas trees in Wilmington for so long that they now have long-term customers.
“A lot of the people are coming back. Now their kids are coming to buy trees from us,” Rusty says.
Staying Busy in Ashe County
After the holidays are over, the farm does a few trade shows at the beginning of the year and goes into tax accounting mode for its 35 employees, some of whom work for the company via the H2A visa guest worker program. Those employees spend 10 months working on the farm and start heading back to West Jefferson from Mexico at the end of February. The farm is also still a family business. Rusty’s children and their spouses work there, too.
They begin the year harvesting the seedlings and planting new ones, while also keeping up with the maintenance work that comes with it. The company used to buy seedlings from the West Coast but began growing them in Ashe County in 2008. This process includes protecting the crop from what Rusty calls the two biggest enemies of the Christmas tree business – deadly phytophthora root rot and hungry deer. The trees take eight years to grow to maturity and are three to five years old when they’re planted in the soil.
The seedlings grow above ground in Styrofoam trays with artificial media.
From Loss After Hurricane Helene to a Tree in the Governor’s Mansion
Barr Evergreens learned those same seedlings “made excellent boats” in September 2024 when Helene hit Western North Carolina.
“We’ve never experienced anything like Helene,” Rusty says. “We thought we were going to make it, then all of a sudden just within 30 minutes almost 300,000 plants were going down the river in Styrofoam trays or down the naked creek there in Styrofoam trays, so we found out they made excellent boats. So they just floated away, and luckily we didn’t lose our one-year-old trees or our two-year-old trees. They were on a little higher ground and didn’t get affected by the water, but we lost pretty much all but about 100,000 of the seedlings that were ready for sale.”
The next year, one of the trees Barr Evergreens sent to the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association’s annual contest was named the grand champion, an award that comes with a notable prize.
“One of the honors is that you get to present a tree to the Governor’s Mansion,” says Rusty. “It’s like a 14-foot Fraser fir Christmas tree… So, it was a grand affair. We had a lot of media there and people taking pictures. We got to meet the governor. It was a good time.”
Giving Back to Community in Local Politics
On top of running the business, Rusty was appointed mayor of West Jefferson last October. The Barrs have a long-standing family tradition in local politics. Rusty was a town alderman and on the city council. His grandfather was also on the city council. Other relatives, too, have been involved in the town’s development.
Barr believes in to giving back to the community.
“It kind of makes you emotional, but being able to, I mean, we don’t derive a lot of our income from Ashe County and West Jefferson, but it’s where we live, and it’s a community we support.
“We want to see the town grow… and it’s a great place to be.”