Wolcyn Tree Farms & Nursery is a family business owned and operated by Tom and Adie Wolcyn of Cambridge, MN. Along with Tom and Adie, three of their four sons work in the business full-time. All of the boys attended the University of Northwestern-St. Paul where they majored in business/finance and Bible while playing football. Nick and his wife Heather have four kids, Dakota, Wesley, Willow and Autumn who all enjoy being around the farm. Ben and his wife Becky stay busy with their four daughters, Avery, Siena, Emma, and Victoria. Bobby and his wife Shauna are enjoying being newlyweds living on Spectacle Lake. Shauna is a very talented artist, and many of her signs are featured in the Gift Shop, which is open from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Clint and his wife Angela live in Bloomington where he is involved with ministry along with his other entrepreneurial endeavors. He runs a Christmas tree lot in Northfield, MN and helps out at the farm a few days each year.
The idea of Wolcyn Tree Farms was born nearly 50 years ago when Tom was only 14 years old growing up in St. Paul, MN. Tom’s Dad and Mom bought the original farm in Isanti County in 1967, and they began shearing Norway pine for Christmas trees. Two years later in 1969, they began selling outside of his parents’ home in St. Paul. The first year they sold about 300 trees. Tom also began the wholesale business that year, and his first account is one that is still a customer of ours to this day! Initially he sold the trees to pay his way through College. He had planned to go into full-time ministry after college, but he decided to turn his part-time seasonal business into a full-time career, and the rest is history! Tom graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1975 with a degree in Forestry. He also played 4 years of varsity baseball at the U of MN, and spent another four years as an assistant coach. He was a member of three Big Ten Championship teams and went to the College World Series twice. He later became the head baseball coach at Bethel University where he coached for two seasons. In 1981, he married Adie, a Wisconsin native and graduate of the University of Wisconsin, and they moved into the original tree farm homestead a few miles north of the current headquarters.
Since those early days of growing strictly Christmas trees, there have been quite a few changes in the business. Growing Christmas trees was very seasonal, so Tom decided to diversify a little. The first natural addition was when we started selling bare root seedlings and transplants. Next, we started digging and transplanting large live trees, which were sold as balled and burlapped trees. At this point, we were still only growing coniferous trees (evergreens), but that was about to change. With the housing boom came the demand for deciduous and ornamental trees, and we began planting them by the thousands. Soon after came the demand for trees that could be planted by hand. This led to the addition of the container nursery where we now grow over 100,000 trees. In the mid 80’s we started selling retail Christmas trees at the farm. A couple years later we opened our choose and cut fields. Our hayrides, gift shop, food, and beautiful wreaths have brought people back year after year-bringing their kids and now Grandkids. We were recently voted by our customers at WCCO's Best Of "Cut your own Christmas Tree." After nearly 50 years of ups and downs growing trees, Tom still enjoys the day to day tasks of the business as well as the people. As we start the second 50 years of business soon, we will continue to plan and look towards the future!
