Illinois tree farms › Richardson Christmas Tree Farm
Richardson Christmas Tree Farm
Spring Grove, Illinois · McHenry County
Opens Nov 27
Opens November 27.
Richardson is the big one up in the northwest corner — more than 50,000 trees across 75 acres in Spring Grove, the same farm behind the enormous corn maze every fall. Six kinds grow here: Fraser, Canaan and concolor fir, Douglas fir, blue spruce and white pine, with pre-cut trees waiting in the barnyard for anyone skipping the saw.
The sales barn is heated and has indoor restrooms, which starts to matter by mid-December, and there's hot chocolate, coffee and donuts made on site. Wagon rides out to the fields are free every day they're open, and they'll haul the tree back for you. One thing to plan around: no lights in the fields, so cutting your own gets difficult once the sun drops. The season runs November 27 to December 20, open daily 9 to 6.
The facts
- Cut-your-own Fraser firs and Canaan firs; pre-cut too
- Open daily 9–6 through December 20. The fields have no lighting, so give yourself daylight if you're cutting your own.
- Also at the farm: free wagon rides every day, homemade donuts, heated sales barn, wreaths & garland
- Opening day: November 27
Checked Aug 15 against the farm's own site · farm website
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Christmas tree disposal and recycling in Illinois
The other end of the same trip: when the tree comes down in January, disposal and recycling are a city job and the rules change at the city line — here is who takes it in Chicago — or Christmas tree disposal in every city we cover →
- How do I dispose of a Christmas tree in Illinois?
- Not at the farm — getting rid of a tree is a city service, and the rules change at the city line. We read the tree collection page for 1 city in Illinois, linked just above: each one says whether the tree goes out for curbside pickup or to a drop-off site, and what has to come off it before it does.
- Is there Christmas tree recycling in Illinois?
- The one city we cover in Illinois says on its own page what becomes of a collected tree, and our page quotes that sentence. Where a city doesn't say, we don't say it either.
- Who handles Christmas tree removal once the season is over?
- The city, or the county authority that runs collection for it — that is the body every page in that January list is read from, and the only one that can tell you when it is running. Private haulers will take a tree away as well; they are not on this site, because we only write down what a city puts in writing itself.