Where to Cut Your Own Christmas Tree in the Texas Hill Country (2026)

There is no shortage of evergreens in the Texas Hill Country. There’s just a shortage of ones anybody would want in a living room. The trees that grow wild out here are live oak and Ashe juniper, and the real tree farms are spread thin enough that you can count them on one hand.

The short answer: for a choose-and-cut Christmas tree in the Hill Country in 2026, the main option is Pipe Creek Christmas Tree Farm in Bandera County, which opens daily from Monday, November 23 (closed Thanksgiving Day) and charges about $15 a foot for Afghan pine, Leyland cypress and Arizona cypress. Southwest of San Antonio, Devine Acres Farm sells trees on weekends from November 21 through December 20. In Fredericksburg, Jenschke Orchards has sold choose-and-cut cypress and precut firs in past seasons. If you have land, there’s also the old ranch answer: cut a cedar.

Where can you cut your own Christmas tree in the Hill Country?

Fewer places than you’d think, and fewer than there used to be. St. Nick’s Christmas Tree Farm north of Fredericksburg is listed as permanently closed on the PickYourOwnChristmasTree directory, and most of the farms on the San Antonio and Austin “cut your own tree” lists are actually out east, in Seguin, Elgin, Lincoln and the Piney Woods. These are the ones on the Hill Country side of I-35.

Pipe Creek Christmas Tree Farm (Pipe Creek, Bandera County)

This is the one. It sits at Texas Highway 16 and Phil’s Road in Pipe Creek, and it is the closest thing the western Hill Country has to a classic tree farm. For 2026 the farm says it opens daily starting Monday, November 23, 11 a.m. to 5:45 p.m., and it is closed Thanksgiving Day.

• Choose-and-cut: Afghan pine (their main tree), Leyland cypress and Arizona cypress, at about $15 a foot.
• Precut: Fraser fir trucked in from North Carolina, from $95, kept in water and shade until you buy it.
• Living trees: 15-gallon potted trees (including a Blue Ice Arizona cypress) for $179, which you can plant after Christmas.
• What they do for you: saws are provided, staff shake out loose needles and net the tree, and they’ll drill the trunk for a pin-style stand. Hayrides are free on weekends, weather permitting.
• Payment: cash, check and major cards, including American Express.

Those are the prices the farm has posted, so treat the per-foot number as a ballpark. Its website doesn’t mention dogs, so call (210) 556-4132 before you bring yours.

Devine Acres Farm (Devine, Medina County)

Devine is on the brush-country side of Medina County, not exactly the hills, but it’s the other real option within an hour of San Antonio’s west side. The farm’s Christmas CountryFest runs Saturdays and Sundays from November 21 through December 20, plus Black Friday (November 27), at 944 FM 2200 W.

This one is more of an outing than a tree errand. Entry is by ticket. The farm advertises choose-and-cut trees and precut trees from North Carolina, but it hasn’t posted varieties or prices. Buy tickets and check what’s included on the farm’s site before you go.

Jenschke Orchards (Fredericksburg)

The Jenschke family is better known for peaches and strawberries on 290 east of town, but they started planting Arizona and Murray cypress for Christmas trees around 2017, according to a 2020 Spectrum News story, and sold fresh-cut Oregon firs while those grew. In 2024, Community Impact listed choose-and-cut Arizona and Murray cypress at $100 each and precut Noble, Nordmann and Douglas firs from $100 to $500, Wednesday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., starting the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Those are 2024 numbers, so call the orchard for this year’s dates and prices before you drive. If you’re already going to Fredericksburg, it pairs well with a day in town and lunch somewhere good.

What kind of Christmas tree grows in Texas?

Not the one in the movies. Fraser fir, the classic Christmas tree, can’t be grown in Texas, which is why every Fraser you see here came off a truck from North Carolina. Texas farms grow Afghan (eldarica) pine, Virginia pine, Leyland cypress and Arizona cypress. Pipe Creek says Afghan pine is the only pine that does well in the Hill Country’s alkaline soil.

• Afghan pine: long, soft needles and strong branches, open enough that ornaments hang inside the tree instead of perching on the outside.
• Leyland cypress: soft, feathery and very dense. Clean, with little needle drop, but there’s no room inside it for ornaments.
• Arizona and Murray cypress: the bluish-gray ones. Farms often sell Murray cypress as an allergy-friendly pick, which is the farms’ claim, not a medical one.
• Fraser, Noble, Nordmann and Douglas fir: precut and shipped in. They look the part and cost more for it.

A fresh-cut Texas tree spends a few hours in your truck instead of a week on an interstate. That’s the whole argument for driving out to a farm, and it’s a good one.

Can you use a cedar as a Christmas tree?

Yes, and on a lot of Hill Country places that’s the tradition. “Cedar” out here means Ashe juniper, and anyone who owns land is already cutting it back. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center calls Ashe juniper and eastern red cedar “credible Christmas trees,” with one rule worth following: cut a female tree, the kind with the blue berries. The males are the ones that put out the yellow pollen clouds people call cedar fever, and you do not want that in the house.

A cedar Christmas tree is lopsided, prickly and smells exactly like the Hill Country. It’s also free, and it’s one less cedar drinking your water. The Wildflower Center’s other note: give the greenery a shake outside first, because things live in cedar. When it’s done, drag it back out for the birds rather than to the curb.

Only cut on land that’s yours or where you have the owner’s say-so. Roadside cedars belong to somebody.

How to keep a real tree alive in a dry Texas house

Water, and nothing else. UF/IFAS Extension’s December 2025 guidance is to cut half an inch to an inch off the trunk and get it into water within 15 to 30 minutes. A tree drinks about a quart of water a day for every inch of trunk diameter, so a 4-inch trunk can go through a gallon a day early on. Use a stand that holds at least two quarts and check it every day.

• Skip the additives. Sugar, aspirin, bleach and Sprite don’t help. Plain water does.
• Keep it away from heat. Three to five feet from the fireplace, vents and sunny windows. A woodstove room in January is where trees go to die.
• Put it up the day you bring it home. If you can’t, stand it in a bucket of water somewhere cool and shaded.
• Check the lights. No bare wires, and turn them off when nobody’s in the room.

When to go, and what to bring

Go early in the season. Texas farms grow a limited number of field trees, and some sell out of their own trees by the second week of December. Pipe Creek is open every day of the week, which most farms aren’t, so a weekday trip is an option there.

• Measure first: your ceiling height minus the stand and the topper. A 7-foot tree in a field looks like a 5-footer.
• Gloves and closed-toe shoes. Cedar and cypress both bite.
• Straps or rope and an old blanket for the truck bed or the roof. Farms net the tree, but you’re doing the tying.
• Cash for anything extra, even where cards are taken.

Make a day of it if you’re going that direction anyway: the whole Hill Country bucket list looks better with a tree tied to the roof. And if you’re the cedar type, the spring land checklist has more on what to do with the rest of them.

Hill Country Christmas tree farms: FAQ

Farm dates and prices as of November 2026. Sources: Pipe Creek Christmas Tree Farm (prices, tree types, services); Devine Acres Farm; Community Impact, October 2024; Spectrum News, December 2020; PickYourOwnChristmasTree.org; San Antonio Current, December 2024; Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center; UF/IFAS Extension, December 2025; Texas Farm Bureau.