Christmas Brings an Evergreen Overload : Holiday: As more families deck the halls with boughs of plastic, growers are facing a glut of trees this season.

PORTLAND, Me. —  A glut of Christmas trees, more competition and the popularity of artificial trees have industry insiders worried that this may be a tough holiday season for growers and sellers.

“There aren’t enough people for all the trees,” said Albert Gondeck, executive director of the Maine Christmas Tree Growers Assn., which represents 250 growers.

Christmas tree growers are expected to harvest about 850,000 trees across northern New England this season: 500,000 in Vermont, 100,000 in New Hampshire and 250,000 in Maine.

The root of this season’s tree glut dates back to the early 1980s, when many growers began planting more and more trees.

Now there is a surplus nationwide, said Marshall Patmos, a Christmas tree specialist for the University of New Hampshire cooperative extension service.

The popularity of artificial Christmas trees adds to the growers’ woes. Nationwide, 46% of homes that display a tree use an artificial one, Patmos said.

Because of the glut, some live trees are starting to appear in the Boston and northern New England markets at ultra-cheap prices: $5 apiece, Patmos said. In northern New England, Christmas trees typically cost $18 to $30.

The sour economy also has prompted more people to sell trees on the side--but without enough knowledge to do it profitably.

To beat the doldrums, some growers are turning to new markets or marketing techniques.

Growers in Tennessee are thinking about expanding their market farther south, even south of the border, said Jerry Blankenship of the Tennessee Department of Agriculture.

“We have talked about shipping some trees to Mexico,” Blankenship said. “It’s just in the planning stages.”

Diane Holmes in Kennebunk, Me., like many choose-and-cut operators, is keeping her business close to home but transforming it from a mundane tree farm into a holiday experience.

She invites customers inside the house to warm up in front of a wood stove, and offers them hot cider, carols and seasonal crafts, like wreath-making.

“It’s almost like a party. Everybody’s in a festive mood,” she said.

Such an operation already has a built-in advantage over those that sell already-cut trees, she said. “The beauty of a choose-and-cut operation is if they don’t buy it this year, they’ll buy it next year.”