Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Jon Anderson gets a snuggle from Moonlight, his fjord horse, who has been in residence at the A to Z Tree Nursery during Christmas tree season.

Family Tree

Jon Anderson grew up on silver tips, but now he offers an evergreen menagerie

By Jeff Kearns

Jon Anderson's A to Z Tree Nursery is a bit atypical. "When the animals aren't here, or if the barbecue isn't on, people can get irate with you," Anderson says. If it sounds like a party at the circus, that's not too far from the truth. The nursery on Winchester Boulevard has evolved into a local tradition for the past 15 holiday seasons, when the regular stock is pushed aside to make room for thousands of Christmas trees, and the nursery serves up hot dogs, popcorn, coffee and hot cider for the customers. Anderson also goes the extra mile and brings down animals from his 28-acre ranch in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where he maintains a rather eclectic menagerie.

Currently on the lot, there's Jolene, a camel with a baby; Moonlight, a fjord horse, whose mane stands straight up, resembling a mohawk with skunk stripes; and Dolly, a tiny Sicilian ass, who isn't much bigger than a dog but brays like an air-raid siren.

"It's a good thing we don't have a whole herd of them," Anderson says.

Anderson also raises other animals, including emus, Barbados sheep and Saipan guinea fowl, a rare breed of chicken that stands about 3 feet tall. Anderson also sells his animals, but concedes, "there's not much money in it, but we break even, and that's all we care about."

His partner in the animal game is his wife, BJ, who helps him care for their multitude of critters. "I love it all," she says, "but the camels are strictly Jon's deal."

The Christmas tree lot buzzes with the murmur of families debating the merits of different trees, puffing silvery clouds of breath in the night air.

"One family used to come in and look at every tree on the lot," Anderson says. "They said it usually took about eight hours, sometimes two days, because they all had to agree unanimously on the same tree." But after the kids grew up and had kids of their own, the process shortened. "Now I see the same guy, and it takes him about 30 seconds to find one, and his wife just says, 'OK, looks good to me.' "

Anderson says he sees the same people every year and estimates 80 percent of his sales are to repeat customers.

But Christmas trees are only a small part of Anderson's business. He also has three other nurseries, as well as a landscaping company and tree-moving business, which did much of the intallation and moving of palm trees in downtown San Jose. Anderson also has a small vineyard on his ranch, which produced 19 tons of grapes last year.

It all started, however, when he was born on his father's dairy ranch south of San Jose. Anderson says he picked up his love of animals, farming, landscaping and gardening from his dad, who was also from a farming family.

"Landscaping is my real love as a businessman, and it's what I'm best at. I love the creativity involved in creating someplace where people are comfortable--a satisfying environment that they can enjoy."

Anderson says his grandfather gave him some business advice that he followed pretty closely: Before you diversify, be real good at what you do, and if you do diversify, make sure you go into a related industry.

After spending some of his teen years in the Midwest, Anderson returned to California to graduate from Los Gatos High School. After college, he started tilling people's yards, and from there he moved into the tree-growing business. He still remembers what his grandfather told him, and he sees his forays into the vineyard and exotic animals as a basic outgrowth of ranching.

Anderson's 28-acre ranch is located off Bear Creek Road. When he bought it about 10 years ago, it came with about 35 horses. The horse business, however, wasn't so lucrative about 10 years ago, and on a visit to Africa, giraffes and elephants caught his eye.

He looked into buying some giraffes, but an animal trainer told him, "They've got long legs and long necks, and they tend to break both." He crossed giraffes off the list and added elephants, but was told, "There's about 400 in the U.S., and every year about three or four people get killed taking care of them. They don't bond to man real well."

A friend who worked as the veterinarian for Ringling Bros. suggested camels, and soon Anderson went to Southern California and bought George, whose profile graces the label on Anderson's own brand of wine. George has also appeared in the Los Gatos Children's Christmas and Holiday Parade over several years past. Now the camel herd on the ranch numbers 14, and two generations have been born in the seven years since he first got George.

"We started bringing the animals to the Christmas farm early on," Anderson explains. "I love the animals, and I wanted to share them with other people. Some people come back every day."

Anderson is a big man with a booming laugh, who still gets sentimental about the holidays. "I'm still a kid at heart. I think Christmas is the most exciting season of the year. It's a festive time. Selling Christmas trees is a real fun sell, not like selling nursery stock."

And Anderson didn't fall too far from the proverbial tree. "My dad always had a beautiful Christmas tree, so I knew what Christmas trees were all about, and when I got into the business, I learned you can't just have one kind of tree," he says.

The lot sells grand firs, noble firs, Douglas firs, silver tips, Scotch pines and blue spruces.

Anderson says he grew up with his dad's silver tips, but as for himself and BJ, "each year we do something different."

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