MIFFLINBURG, New York — Six feet of snow wasn’t about to stop Leon Berner from his mission: getting Christmas trees from among the thousands at the annual Buffalo Valley Produce Auction, which began Thursday.
Berner owns Berner Farms Market & Greenhouse in Elma, New York, some 18 miles east of Buffalo where a historic snowstorm has buried the area. He has lost a greenhouse in the mess. A friend and fellow garden center owner lost five, he said.
“Epic is the word everyone is using to describe it up there,” Berner said, pointing out about a foot of snow that came with him to Pennsylvania on top of his truck.
Berner came down Wednesday and said he had no difficulty getting out of the region. “I’m not so sure about going back,” he said laughing. He is planning to head home Saturday when the snow in western New York was expected to clear somewhat. “I’ve been coming here by myself for years.”
Brian Przybyl, owner of Gardenville Blooms in Buffalo, said he can’t even get to his business.
“We were supposed to be prepared for this trip,” he said. “No go, it’s blocked off,” and he showed a picture of what looked like a quaint garden house behind walls of snow.
Przybyl and Berner were among the hundreds of vendors Thursday as the annual auction got under way. People came from as far north as Maine and as far south as Virginia to choose among the more than 50,000 fir trees, more than 20,000 wreaths and ornamentals and thousands of yards of white pine roping, which was very popular and sold out quickly.
Most folks spoken to were veterans of this sale, among the biggest on the East Coast, if not in the country.
Max Tyson, owner of Tyson Farms in Hedgesville, West Virginia, said he’s been making the three-hour trip here for years because the auction has quality trees for reasonable prices. He was after Fraser firs, a popular tree for Christmas because its needles are softer and the tree holds them well after cutting.
“We need more wreaths,” said Janice Bowersox, of Hill View Tree Farm in Middleburg, at the auction with co-worker Patricia Potter. “There’s not enough of our own product” to meet demand. “For us, the auction being right here makes it good.”
Bowersox said she has come to the auction for at least 15 years and planned to attend Thursday to buy Christmas trees but noted, as had others, that there was less stock than last year.
There are fewer trees this year, said Mark Kurtz, an auction worker. Demand was down slightly last year, he said, and the auction even had trees left over then.
But so far Thursday, just an hour into it, a lot of stock was moving.
Today will begin the Christmas tree auction, in which lots of Frasers, Douglas, concolor and others pines will be sold for many Pennsylvania and North Carolina tree farms.