Lee Family Farms — Attraction in Tualatin

Well where to start. It's hard to find a good tree farm anymore. We thought we had with this one. Large selection, fun county store, etc. But that's where the charm ends. When we arrived we asked for some direction to find a tree 17' or larger. The guy acted like he couldn't be bothered and said, "oh those will be over there." Pointing us in a direction. Perfect, we thought! Started walking down the road only to realize that he had basically just pointed us in the direction of the half of the farm. Ok fine, it's a beautiful day, we'll walk until we find them ourselves. After about an hour of strolling around and not finding any large trimmed trees (many in the 6-12' or 22-26' range) we return to the lot with the pre cut trees.. When I arrive back they have the tree in the bailer and are roughly trying to shove it through. I asked, "what about shaking the needles out!?" To which I was told they don't shake trees this size. Great, now I'm feeling irritated for buying a crazy expensive tree that now has busted lower bows and is FULL of dried needles waiting to fall on my floor. We get the tree home, get it mounted on the new stand (Davis tree stand. Amazing and we love it. The one good thing that came from all of this) and get it up right in the house. The thing is a mess. Dead needles stacked everywhere. My wife, sensing my frustration, jumped right in with the shop vac and vacuumed the entire 15' tree! God bless her. Anyway tree looks pretty good decorated and all is well... For about a week. Then I start noticing she small sticky dots on the hardwood floor under the tree. I examine and figure they're small drops of sap from the pruning wounds. They continue to build up and get a little worse until one day I look under the tree and the piles have exploded. They're huge and wet! So I start really looking now, aphids! APHIDS EVERYWHERE! We're only to December 19th at this point and I leave the next morning on a trip (airline pilot) and won't be back until the 24th. What am I supposed to do? Tear the tree down? I offered a tarp but my wife wouldn't have it. She unrolled the tree skirt as far as it would which caught most of the sap. Problem solved, sorta. Nope! We make it to Christmas day and these things grew wings! Hundreds of them flying all over the house landing on other plants! It's the first time, in my life, I've even taken a tree down on Christmas day. We had a grand ol bonfire that night though! So anyway, back to the metal lawn art we bought that I was telling you about earlier. Who ever painted them either A: didn't use the right type of paint or B: didn't prep the surface correctly because within two weeks of sitting outside the paint head cracked off and fallen to the ground. We spent over $800 dollars at that farm in one day and they can't even offer an exchange because I missed some 30 day window? Granted in contacting them a month and a half late, I get it, but life is busy with a 7 month old baby and being in the road all the time. This just fell through the cracks. I'm not saying I'm some huge spender and demanding I be treated like a VIP. I just want what I paid for. Nothing more. My only regret it's not trusting my gut and getting my money back when I saw the tree getting smashed through the bailer. Do yourself a favor and and avoid this place AT ALL COST. they are very expensive and you won't get what you pay for. Lesson learned. John PS my Yelp review had a bit...

In my personal opinion I think the prices are a bit steep for what you're getting. We paid for bracelets for a group of 6. The bracelets get you into everything except pony rides and tractor ride which you pay extra for. Not to mention if you plan on buying lunch there. But it was 15$ per bracelet coming out to 90$. That being said the kids had a fun day. They were wiped out by the end of it. They had nice features to the farm which are unique to their farm like the bouncing pillow. There are a few reasons why I'd never return that I'd like to share with the farm (so they can consider fixing them) and with anyone planning to go. I hope no one takes my review personally, my intent is only to help. The upkeep of the front of the farm is beautiful but it seems the further you go back the more run down it gets. There are gopher holes everywhere and no direct pathways through the grass to get to the slides and hay maze. Some of the gopher holes were dangerously deep and not very visible. Be careful when walking through the grass. When we got to the slides there was a sign that said 2 tickets but there was no one there to take tickets. So for people buying tickets it was cool cause they didn't have to pay but for someone with bracelets it's kinda like "maybe we shouldn't have bought bracelets."

Eventually we got to the maze which is covered by a tarp tent with a steel frame. But the hay was exposed on the sides which you can see from the the slides. The hay had collapsed on the sides revealing rotten maybe moldy and damp hay. You could smell it decaying. I was thinking we would skip the indoor maze but as soon as the children saw it they wanted to go in. I wish I had photos for the inside because you might think I'm exaggerating. It's terrifying and not in a good way. The smell is bad there is not much airflow inside but it's pitch black you can't see anything. If I didn't have a phone flashlight I would have to feel around. When I turned the flashlight on I became more fearful because this whole thing is ready to collapse. The hay hasn't been replaced for at least 2 years. They had wooden planks on the ceiling that were sagging and falling inward. Even the steel bars were sagging inwards. They had holes that children could crawl through but adults can't so we lost a child for a little bit there. There was so much hay that you could barely hear someone yelling if you weren't right next to them. There were spider webs everywhere and I kept telling the children not to touch anything in fear of mold and in fear of making it collapse. The hay NEEDS to be replaced and I wouldn't consider going back unless I can confirm it had been. Just stay away from there. If you have allergies bring along claritan or take before you go. This is obviously not anything the farm can control it's just a fair warning. So much sneezing. There were very nice aspects to this farm but I just feel like for how much we payed the expectations were FAIRLY higher. They have nice things in the shop but I bought a beautiful smelling candle for 15$ that has funneled and drowned within 5 minutes of lighting. Don't buy the candles unless you're prepared to make was tarts out of them. Just take my review how you like and decide if you are okay with paying for these things. The kids had fun and there are fun aspects but I feel like I can find better fun for the kids for...

We've gone here for several years because it was convenient. But I'm not as trusting with Lee's any more. Word of advice, don't be ignorant about your tree species like I am/was. Take time to know your trees and not just take the word of some teenage kid working there. Make sure you get the right price for the length of the tree too and, again, not take the word of some kid who's just there to get a paycheck.

We got what we thought was a 8-foot Noble. However, one of the attendants said he could cut it down to size to 7-feet and thus we'd have to pay for a 7-foot tree instead of an 8-foot one. I wasn't really paying much attention because my wife was doing all the talking. I'm not really into Christmas trees to begin with because my dad was a pastor and used to say that the trees were a remnant of pagan rituals and "not-Christian"; and if we were going to celebrate Christ's birth it needs to be about-Jesus' birthday and not integrate Pagan stuff into it even though we already-do by celebrating it in December instead of September. Yeah. That's how my family rolled. So, these days I find it silly to have a thing that should-be outside...inside-my house; and even more annoying is that I have to tool around a muddy place to pick it out, have it cut down and pay for it only to clean up after it and water it and then give it to a Boy Scouts troop (along with a donation) or chop it up a month later. I have zero romanticized views of Christmas trees; it brings zero cozy feelings for me.

Saying that, I paid $127.60 with a tag that says it is supposed be an 8-foot Noble (I'm assuming "8N" means 8-foot Noble). I just wanted to get out of there but thought it was weird that we got an 8-foot tree when, from my recollection, the attendant said they could cut it down at least a foot so we'd only have to pay for a 7-foot tree.

It was bailed and mounted on top of our SUV and it was raining. So I wasn't really paying that much close of attention to the details about it.

We got home and I lifted it and noticed the pine needles attached to the branches didn't seem like it should be Noble. I always thought Noble trees had stiffer branches and it's why they could carry more weight from ornaments and all. This tree looked like the regular ol' Doug-fir we always get.

Sure enough I put it on the stand opened it up and realized, this is probably a Doug-fir and the top was never chopped off. The top is so flimsy it will not hold up a weighted topper and there's 18-inches of it; I now have to trim it down to 2 feet to get to the thicker portion of the tree to be able to hold the topper. That means the "useful" height of this tree is actually 6-feet. And, a 6-foot Douglas Fir should've cost us $59.70 not the $127.60 we paid. I feel ripped off. And....will no longer go to Lee Farms if they can't even identify their own tree species appropriately and just have a bunch of teenage kids who really don't know what...