Evergreen Tree Facts for Kids

Evergreen trees bring to mind lovely crisp winter nights with the silent snow falling onto the evergreens dark green foliage during Christmas time. These trees are best known for being grown as Christmas trees, but there are many other important uses for evergreen trees. Teaching children about the differences in the types of evergreen trees and the trees uses is a valuable lesson. Insert fun statistics in the information to keep kids interested.

Species

The evergreen tree genus has such a vast number of species that they are too numerous to mention; there are over 115 types of pines alone. Some of the more popular types of evergreens are pines, spruces, cedars, hemlock, cypresses, hollies and firs. Each of these varieties keep most of their needles year round.

Landscaping

Evergreen trees are very popular ornamental trees for landscaping since they stay the same shade of green no matter the time of year. This is because of their year-round greenery, their placement versatility and ability to act as a sound barrier due to their dense foliage. Some common evergreen types chosen for landscaping are pines, firs, arborvitae and spruces.

Christmas

Each year in the United States about 25 to 30 million Christmas trees are sold. There are approximately 350,000 acres of Christmas trees being produced across the United States. It can take an evergreen Christmas tree around 15 years to grow 6 to 7 feet in height. The smallest amount of time it takes to cultivate an evergreen tree is 4 years. The most popular evergreen trees used for Christmas are balsam fir, Douglas fir, Fraser fir, noble fir, scotch pine, Virginia pine and white pine. The top three Christmas tree producing states are Oregon, North Carolina and Michigan.

State Trees

An evergreen tree is the state tree in 28 of the 50 states in America. Mississippi claimed the magnolia as their state tree in 1938. Alabama uses the longleaf pine for their tree in 1997. Oregon has had the Douglas fir since 1939 and Washington adopted the western hemlock in 1947. California's state tree is known worldwide to be the tallest trees in the world; the coast redwood became California's symbol in 1937.

Uses

Evergreen trees are very aromatic trees; many people use pine needles to scent their home or make wreaths of evergreen boughs to hang upon their doors. Pine cones are used in many crafts. The wood from evergreen trees varies depending upon the species, but most are used in furniture making. Some parts of evergreen trees are used for medicinal purposes like the Camphor tree. Camphor oil helps relieve the symptoms of respiratory problems due to the common cold or flu.