Arend Tree Farms was founded over 70 years ago and now spans three generations. It started in the early 1930’s when John Arend, a forestry student at the University of Michigan, began to question importing low quality Christmas trees when most of the species or similar ones could be grown locally. He planned such a project and obtained several thousand White Spruce and planted them on his father’s farm near Saline, Michigan in 1939. In 1946, most of these seedlings reached Christmas tree size, and his father, Fred Arend, started selling them locally.

During the 1950’s, our family continually increased production, and by 1950, acquired 250 acres along I-94 between Jackson and Ann Arbor and 150 acres near Brooklyn, Michigan. The Brooklyn location was comprised of 50 acres along M-50 adjacent to the Michigan International Speedway and 100 acres along Monroe Pike (Old M-50) just south of Brooklyn.

Seedlings were difficult to find in those days. We purchased all we could find in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New York--often not the best quality. We were able to plant 20,000-40,000 seedlings per year, mostly Scotch Pine, White Spruce, Blue Spruce, and Douglas Fir. Our maximum number of seedlings planted reached 61,000 in 1983.

We obtained a mechanical tree planter in 1950, designed by Bill Mays who was working for the Illinois Central Railroad. This was the only tree planter in southern Michigan for many years, and we received many requests to plant trees for other farmers. We now have a more modern tree planter manufactured by Holland Mechanical Tree Planters in Holland, Michigan.

Not all of those planted survived. Quality was poor, and we often had dry summers. We solved this problem by buying irrigation equipment in 1980. However, we were able to grow many thousand merchantable trees annually since 1950. We have furnished wholesale trees to Christmas tree retailers in most every city and village in southern Michigan and northern Ohio. We handled these trees in loose form for many years before we had tree balers. Most of our retailers picked up their trees at our plantations although we did deliver a few. This was hard work, but we sold all of our merchantable trees each year. We were the only wholesale operation in southern Michigan for many years.

In 1978, Lee Arend started working full-time with John. This was also about the time the general public started to get interested in cutting their own trees for Christmas. This interest started when the city forester of Detroit declared that the only way to guarantee a fresh tree is to cut it yourself. The demand during the early 80?s became so strong that it was hard to grow enough trees. Through the 90?s and into the new century we have been able to increase the number and sizes of trees to satisfy our customers. Our business is still growing mainly through word of mouth. In 2006, John Arend, at the age of 93, retired from the everyday tree operation. After 70 years in the Christmas tree business, he passed away in September of 2008. Lee Arend continues to run Arend Tree Farms and hopes to do it at least as long as his dad.