Butler — It's only February, but the staff at Heasley's Nurseries on Freeport Road is already selling Christmas trees. However, these trees won't be decorating cozy living rooms — they're headed for the big screen.

Manager Linda Cranmer said crews from CBS Films began arriving at the nursery earlier this month to collect trees and shrubs for use as scenery in the movie “Let It Snow,” currently filming around Butler and the greater Pittsburgh area.

According to entertainment news website TheWrap, “Let It Snow,” is a holiday comedy starring Diane Keaton and Alan Arkin set for a November release.

Cranmer said CBS Films needed 25 trees, each 22 feet tall, for a scene being filmed in an undisclosed location.

This isn't Heasley's Nurseries' first appearance in a feature film. Greg Jones, a Pittsburgh-based, freelance greens coordinator for movies filmed in the area, said he first purchased plants from the business for the 2000 movie “Wonder Boys,” starring Michael Douglas.

Jones said that film required holly hedges to match an existing four-foot hedge at Shady Side Academy in Fox Chapel, where the movie was filming.

“Heasley's already had three-foot-tall hollies all ready to go, so we just supplemented the existing hedge with the hollies that Heasley's provided,” Jones said. “It totally changed the front of the main hall of the school.”

Cranmer said the nursery's work with Jones picked up in 2012, when it sold plants for use in a then-untitled movie filming in Sewickley. That film, known at the time as “The Untitled Fair Hill Project,” was released in January of this year as the Oscar-nominated “Foxcatcher,” starring Steve Carell and Channing Tatum.

For “Let It Snow,” Jones and Heasley's began choosing plants in October 2014. Cranmer said the process is mostly the same from movie to movie.

“(Jones) works with the set designers,” Cranmer said. “He comes out and we go through our inventory and pick out what plants he could use for what he has in mind for that set. Then he goes back to the set designers.”

Once the designers approve Jones' idea, he and his crew come back to the nursery to collect the chosen plants.

“It's an easy way for us to handle some of the larger material,” Cranmer said. “Like, these 22-foot trees, we would never be able to dig them up and sell them because they're just too big.”

Founded in 1934 by Cranmer's grandparents, Heasley's sits on 400 acres of ornamental shrubs and trees. Cranmer said the movie industry accounts for about 5 percent of Heasley's business.

“It's just helped us increase our customer base,” Cranmer said of working with the film industry. “It's given us another avenue to work with besides landscapers and other nurseries.”

Cranmer said Heasley's is on a list of local vendors for filmmakers shooting in the Pittsburgh area. Profits vary from movie to movie, but Cranmer said it's always worthwhile to get involved with a new film.

Jones said Pittsburgh lures filmmakers for many reasons, including the Pennsylvania Film Tax Credit, which makes this area financially desirable.

“The topography of Pittsburgh is interesting. Downtown's buildings are so concentrated that Pittsburgh can often double as New York City,” Jones said. “Twenty minutes outside of Pittsburgh, you can find forests or farms.”

He's personally drawn to Heasley's for scenery because of the number of mature trees and shrubs it sells.

“My job is to create an exterior environment,” Jones said. “Often (the film crew) build(s) a house in the middle of a vacant lot and to make it look realistic, as if it's been there for 30 years or more, they can't plant a tiny little shrub. They need to get large, established-looking things that have been there for 25 or 30 years.”

Despite his ongoing relationship with Heasley's, Jones said he's still “pleasantly surprised” by its selection whenever he goes greenery shopping for a new set.

“I'm familiar enough with Heasley's inventory that typically I have a good idea of what I need and the quantity,” Jones said. “It's an evolutionary process. They may not have exactly what we're looking for, but they'll have something similar enough that it will work.”

For each movie, the production company transports the plants it buys from Heasley's to the film site. Cranmer said locations are often secret, and she doesn't know where the plants are going in most cases. Jones said his sets usually stay within a 35-mile radius of downtown Pittsburgh.

Cranmer said she doesn't believe the Heasley's Nurseries name has ever appeared in the credits of a movie, but she does watch all of the movies they help landscape.

“I look to see our plants and see where (Jones) used them and how they're used,” Cranmer said. “They don't use them just as plants. He tries to turn them into different other things. He's very imaginative like that.”

In addition to “Let It Snow,” Heasley's greenery was recently featured in “Southpaw” with Jake Gyllenhaal, “Fathers and Daughters” with Aaron Paul, “The Last Witch Hunter” with Vin Diesel, and “Concussion” with Will Smith. According to TheWrap, all five films are scheduled for premieres this year.