Erik Pauze, Rockefeller Center’s head gardener since 1995, is tasked yearly with choosing out the proper tree for the plaza.
Pauze has excessive standards for the proper tree: It must be a Norway spruce that’s a minimum of 70 toes tall and 40 to 42 toes broad, he instructed TODAY.com in 2022. It additionally must be massive and secure sufficient to assist the burden of the wires, cables and lights and, after all, the star atop it.
“I search for that massive, lovely form, good and inexperienced, good and full, a tree that you’d need in your lounge for Christmas,” he mentioned on the time.
Pauze instructed the Rockefeller Center journal this yr that not a lot has modified in his submit over the past three many years however that the method differs a bit yr to yr.
“Typically, the timeline is that every one yr, nearly each day, I’m serious about this yr’s Tree, subsequent yr’s Tree, and perhaps the Tree after that,” he mentioned, noting that the seek for this yr’s tree began in July 2020.
“I noticed the attractive Norway Spruce as I drove down the highway, and it was proper in entrance of me,” Pauze mentioned. “I knocked on the door and met Earl Albert. I requested if he would sometime think about donating the Tree to Rockefeller Center. His reply was instantly sure.”