Best to keep it outdoors. Perhaps on porch where you can see it from indoors.

If you absolutely *must* bring it indoors, a week is the longest it should be there.

close all heat ducts in the given room ...

and keep the house as cold as you can ...

ambient humidity is your issue ...

plastic on floor...

i did it once... with 3 trees at once ... a 4 footer.. a 3 footer.. and a 2 footer .. i saw.. in advance.. the weight of a large one ...

have hole prepped outdoors ...

keep lights to min running time .. though with the fancy low heat newer lights ..it might not be much of an issue... its a heat on needles issue ...

you are at 50/50 odds.. perhaps this year will be the determinative shot at glory ...

it is impossible to know.. on the one you lost.. whether it was your handling.. or simply poor stock to begin with... i never favor large transplants.. and not only did you buy a large transplant.. you brought it indoors for storage ... tough call.. i would have like to have seen the root mass on the dead one ... in other words.. i would blame someone else.. lol.. after all .. what are the holidays for.. lol ...

i cant recall the types i had.. for sure.. the bigger was p pungens ... i might think.. the thicker needle ones.. will handle the humidity issue better ... as compared to say.. p strobus ....

is anything available to you.. or do you have a set list of options???? .. it might be useless for us to name things you cant get ....

ken

I appreciate the responses. The hole is already dug .. It's going to be difficult keeping the room cool because of the way our heating zones are setup and the fact that we have a newborn baby in the house.

Here are the varieties I'm considering:

Serbian Spruce : Norway Spruce : Colorado Blue Spruce : White Spruce : Douglas Fir

I'm definitely going to be looking for a small tree, maybe 3' - 4' at most. Planning on purchasing around the 21st and will hopefully have it in the ground by the 27th. Someone advised to use ice chips to keep the ball moist and I'm going to give try.

as i recall ....

my tall one.. was put on an inverted 20 gallon pot.. or some such thing... giving it two more feet of height ...

think: ...milk crate... 5 gal bucket ... but it might depend if you really mean newborn.. vs. toddler .... i dont know if i would be balancing weight at height with a rugrat moving about ... and.. i did not have a cat at the time ... need i address that issue???? .. not really cat owners know .. lol ...

i dont know why the newborn is an issue... a healthy one.. is a furnace... i used to ... oh never mind.. lol ... congrats ...

now mind you i am MI ... cold z5 ... so the forced air furnace is a killer on trees in the house ... so i put the trees in front of the east facing LARGE front window... which means it was cold to start with ...

and i got two shower curtain type twist adjustable rods for the two doorways ... and just hung a flat sheet across them ... and as i said.. closed the registers .... for all but xmas day ... the living room.. of which as a bachelor .. i didnt use much ... was chilly like the veg section at the grocer .... etc .. ad nauseum ... you get the idea ..

next.. IN MI ... i had to worry about HARDENING IT OFF ... taking it from 65 degrees.. back outdoors to the teens... so they went in the garage for a day or two ... before i slammed them in the holes outside ... perhaps not an issue in your zone ... but a variable to consider ...

i did mist them some mornings... many.. MANY hours before i would turn on the c7 indoor/outdoor lights ... not really to wet them ... just to raise the humidity ...

i would be curious the variables you addressed on your other attempts .. perhaps in defining such .. we could offer some further thoughts...

ken

back in the 70s/80s I was a partner in a garden center/landscaping business and we sold maybe 50 live Christmas trees each season - White Pine and Norway Spruce as I recall. Our recommendations pretty much went along with what Ken told you -buy a manageable size tree, get the hole dug before hand and fill with mulch or straw which can be used later, in the house for a very few days in a cool room, into a garage or unheated sun room for a week or so and plant best way you can in late December/early January with a follow-up as soon as the ground thaws. One additional suggestion we made was to place the tree in a wash tub - which we also sold - and this served two purposes. Wash tubs have handles and two people can move the tree around easily and they hold water which we recommended keeping several inches in the tub for humidity and the root ball would also absorb the water keeping the roots and tree somewhat hydrated. Most of our trees survived if these recommendations were followed. If not, trees usually died.

Good Luck

Marshall

and by washtub... i presume he means the round one at the link ...

i wonder.. these 2 decades later.. if this is how i ended up with such???

now listen close... for the first 2 years of my kids lives.. this WAS THEIR POOL .... think bubble bath ... lol ...

so.. dual purpose ...

man this has me flashing back ... who knew the teen years were going to be so challenging... lol .. yeah i know.. everyone... lol ...

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link