How to Wrap Your Trees with Outdoor Lights
Tree Lights: How to Wrap a Tree With Outdoor Lights
Outdoor and holiday designers and decorators have seen the light and they aren't returning to the dark side anytime soon. One is not enough--soon every trunk, branch and limb that resembles a tree gets wrapped and lighted for the annual outdoor holiday display. Bare, leafless trees -- known as deciduous -- are the best types to be wrapped with lights. At night, their trunks and branches become magical, especially horizontal-spreading varieties.
Palm tree trunks wrapped with white or red lights show off their vertical, upright forms at night and draw the eye upward toward the clear night sky.
What's the best way to start illuminating the trees in your yard? For starters, pick a tree that's a focal point. What to look for:
Ready to wrap your trees and dazzle the neighborhood?
Lighting a Tree: Tools and Supplies
You're taking the plunge and installing light strands on the trunk and maybe the branches of one or more trees in your yard. Here are the tools and supplies you will need:
*Caution:Don't mix incandescent (regular, old-school, non-LEDs, what you already have) with LEDs.
If you are handy outside the house or hang lights on your roofline or other areas of your home or yard, then you probably own or have borrowed an extension ladder. Before leaning the extension ladder against a tree, make sure it's at a proper angle and its feet, or base, is secure and not tippy. My husband wasn't thrilled when I asked him to move the ladder out of the in-ground succulent landscape that I'd just worked on in our front yard, but brought the ladder around to another side of the palm tree where it was safe and secure.
Ideally, you want to have a buddy or partner around to help with the job, secure or hold the ladder in tight areas, and to help "spot" the job from the ground while you're up on the ladder. Take time to read about ladder safety and watch the following video on the subject:
Safety With Ladders When Doing Electrical Work
Video: How to Safely Use an Extension Ladder
Decide where the visible base of the tree is, and start from there. Visible base? Sure, the tree's trunk grows from the ground on up -- but if you can't see the bottom of the trunk from the street, why waste 100-or-so lights on it? Shrubs, tall grasses, rocks and other landscaping elements might cover or obscure the very bottom of the trunk. Walk to the curb or out to the street -- carefully, watching for cars -- and make a mental note as to where the trunk is visible, and take it from there.
After that, the sky's the limit, baby!
Outdoor and holiday designers and decorators have seen the light and they aren't returning to the dark side anytime soon. One is not enough--soon every trunk, branch and limb that resembles a tree gets wrapped and lighted for the annual outdoor holiday display. Bare, leafless trees -- known as deciduous -- are the best types to be wrapped with lights. At night, their trunks and branches become magical, especially horizontal-spreading varieties.
Palm tree trunks wrapped with white or red lights show off their vertical, upright forms at night and draw the eye upward toward the clear night sky.
What's the best way to start illuminating the trees in your yard? For starters, pick a tree that's a focal point. What to look for:
- Size is obvious here. If you have a big tree in your yard that's the centerpiece of the landscape, light it up!
- Shape: Stand back and survey your front (or back) landscape. Which tree(s) have the most interesting shapes this time of year, sans leaves? An umbrella-shaped tree or one that has horizontal-spreading branches is more noticeable when illuminated.
- Strength: Don't be so quick to wrap or cover a new or fragile tree with lights, just because the tree is there, in your yard. Find another specimen to adorn with lights and let the young sap become a mighty oak. Or Poplar. Or Maple.
- Budget and number of lights and atrands: You know that old saying, "A little goes a long way?" That does not apply when wrapping a tree in lights. Think about it: depending on the circumference of the trunk, each time you wrap those lights 'round and 'round, there goes another 20, 30-or so twinkling lights. A tree that is wrapped with light strands one-third the way up its trunk is not going to look, ummm, festive or complete. Plan and budget accordingly. Start small and add more lights each year.
Ready to wrap your trees and dazzle the neighborhood?
Lighting a Tree: Tools and Supplies
You're taking the plunge and installing light strands on the trunk and maybe the branches of one or more trees in your yard. Here are the tools and supplies you will need:
- Ladder
- Gloves: Leather, suede or synthetic, or maybe a couple pairs for different areas of the tree. If you choose to not to wear gloves, prepare for a few cuts and scrapes on those lovely, manicured hands and fingers.
- Light strands, preferably LEDs (light-emitting diodes). Why? We have 10 good reasons why you should switch to LEDs.* To avoid having to plug-in several strands of lights, opt for one of those large spools or reels of lights to make the job easier. The initial price may seem high, but it's worth it if you plan on using them year after year. In addition to the color of the lights themselves, think about the color of the electrical chord. White is fine (it's what we used here), but brown or green might be preferable, depending on the color of your tree's trunk and branches.
- Speaking of light color, warm white LEDs provide a nice, warm glow reminiscent of theincandescents that everyone loves and many diehards with which so many diehards and traditionalists have trouble parting. Cool white offers a bluish glow and colored lights are either multicolored or one color. If using several strands of white lights, make sure you are consistent and buy or choose all warm or all cool white lights, unless you're going for a warm/cool effect. One color looks probably looks better.
- A staple gun or nail-hooks are optional but not advisable--they can damage the tree trunk. Rugged bark can sufficient to "grab" on to light strands.
*Caution:Don't mix incandescent (regular, old-school, non-LEDs, what you already have) with LEDs.
If you are handy outside the house or hang lights on your roofline or other areas of your home or yard, then you probably own or have borrowed an extension ladder. Before leaning the extension ladder against a tree, make sure it's at a proper angle and its feet, or base, is secure and not tippy. My husband wasn't thrilled when I asked him to move the ladder out of the in-ground succulent landscape that I'd just worked on in our front yard, but brought the ladder around to another side of the palm tree where it was safe and secure.
Ideally, you want to have a buddy or partner around to help with the job, secure or hold the ladder in tight areas, and to help "spot" the job from the ground while you're up on the ladder. Take time to read about ladder safety and watch the following video on the subject:
Safety With Ladders When Doing Electrical Work
Video: How to Safely Use an Extension Ladder
Decide where the visible base of the tree is, and start from there. Visible base? Sure, the tree's trunk grows from the ground on up -- but if you can't see the bottom of the trunk from the street, why waste 100-or-so lights on it? Shrubs, tall grasses, rocks and other landscaping elements might cover or obscure the very bottom of the trunk. Walk to the curb or out to the street -- carefully, watching for cars -- and make a mental note as to where the trunk is visible, and take it from there.
After that, the sky's the limit, baby!