Mini lights and tree wrap: what your trees actually take
Landscape lighting is all at ground level, quick, and the single best-value DIY job on a property. It is also where almost everyone under-buys, because a trunk does not look like a hundred feet of anything until you start wrapping it.
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If you are going to do one part of your display yourself, do this part. Landscape lighting is at ground level, there is no ladder, the risk is essentially zero, and the visual return per hour is the best on the property. A dark house with lit trees looks intentional. A lit house with dark trees looks unfinished.
The number that surprises everyone
A 12-inch trunk is over three feet around. Wrapping it eight feet up at three-inch spacing means thirty-two complete turns, and thirty-two times three feet is about a hundred feet of lights — for one modest tree.
Scale that to a mature oak with a 24-inch trunk and you are near two hundred feet before touching a branch. Two front-yard trees can quietly need more light than the entire roofline of the house.
This is why so many DIY displays have trees wrapped four feet up and then stopping: the buyer worked from how the tree looked, not from the arithmetic. The tree wrap calculator does the sum for any trunk in a few seconds, and it is worth doing before you order.
Buy wide-angle 5mm, not standard minis
This is the one specification that matters most on a tree. A standard mini bulb points its light along the string; a wide-angle 5mm conical bulb throws it sideways. Wrap a trunk with the former and you get a bright helix with dark gaps between the turns. Wrap it with the latter and the trunk reads as an evenly lit column from the street.
The price difference is small. The visual difference is the whole job.
When a net beats wrapping
For a rounded shrub, always. Throwing a net over a boxwood takes about a minute; hand-wrapping the same shrub takes twenty and looks no better from six feet away. More to the point, the net comes off in one piece in January while a hand-wrapped shrub has to be unwound in the cold.
For trunks, stretch nets do the same job for the same reason, and on a plain trunk the finished look is near enough identical. We hand-wrap where the shape genuinely calls for it and use nets everywhere else, and there is no reason for a homeowner to do differently.
Wire colour, briefly
Brown wire on trunks and branches. Green wire on shrubs and anything with foliage. Your lights are off for twenty hours out of twenty-four, and during those hours the wire is the only thing anyone sees.
Where this stops being a DIY job
Wrapping the canopy of a mature hardwood. Leaning a ladder against a round, often damp trunk is significantly less stable than leaning it on a wall, and there is progressively less to rest it against the higher you go. Lit limbs on a big tree is work for someone with a lift, and it is one of the more common things we get asked for on its own.
5mm wide-angle minis
Wide-angle 5mm bulbs throw light sideways rather than straight up the string, which is why a wrapped trunk lit with them reads evenly from the street instead of showing a bright line and two dark sides.
Cheapest option that genuinely fits
Brizled 5MM Wide Angle Christmas String Lights Green, 100 LED Connectable
A connectable 100-bulb wide-angle set in green. Colour strings are where DIY beats hiring anyone — accent colour is cheap and takes ten minutes on a shrub.
- Connectable end to end
Check before buying: the listing does not state a run length, so we cannot work out how many boxes you need; bulb spacing is not stated on the listing.
$19.99
See it on Amazon
What we would put on this house
Wintergreen Lighting 50 Count LED Cool White Christmas Lights
Commercial-grade 5mm wide-angle minis at a stated 6-inch spacing — the only string here that publishes its spacing, which matters when you are wrapping a trunk and need to know how far a box goes.
- Listed as commercial grade
- Green wire
- 6" bulb spacing
$21.99 × 4 = $87.96
See it on Amazon
Most capable, if the budget allows
yongzhenlite UL Listed 50 Count Dimmable 5MM Wide Angle Led Christmas Lights
UL listed and dimmable, which is unusual at this price. Dimmable matters if you are running these indoors on a tree as well as outside.
- UL listed
- Green wire
- 17 ft per box — 6 boxes cover your 100 ft
Check before buying: bulb spacing is not stated on the listing.
$18.99 × 6 = $113.94
See it on AmazonNets and trunk wraps — the shortcut that actually works
Net lights over a shrub take about a minute and come off in one piece in January. Hand-wrapping the same shrub takes twenty minutes and comes off as a knot. For plain trunks and rounded shrubs the finished look is near enough identical from the street.
| Product | Coverage | Bulbs | Wire | Connectable | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dirnun Led Christmas Net Lights Outdoor Christmas Lights WarmWhite 160LED… | 5 ft × 7 ft | 160 | — | — | $29.99 |
| Led Christmas Net Lights Outdoor Christmas Bushes Lights 120Led 6ftx5ft | 6 ft × 5 ft | 120 | — | Yes | $33.99 |
| Kringle Traditions Clear Christmas Trunk Wrap Lights with 100 Lamps on… | 2 ft × 8 ft | 100 | brown | — | $19.99 |
| Wintergreen Lighting 70 Warm White LED StretchNet Pro Expandable Christmas… | 21 in × 31 in | 70 | brown | — | $23.99 |
| Wintergreen Lighting Warm White LED Tree Trunk Wrap Lights | 2 ft × 6 ft | 100 | brown | — | $45.99 |
| Wintergreen Lighting 70 5mm Warm White LED Icicle Christmas Lights | — | 70 | white | — | $24.99 |
| 33FT 400 LED Icicle Lights for Outside, Warm White Christmas Lights Outdoor | — | 400 | — | — | $25.99 |
Dirnun Led Christmas Net Lights Outdoor Christmas Lights WarmWhite 160LED…
Net lights are the highest-value DIY job on the whole list: throw one over a boxwood and you are done in a minute, versus twenty minutes of wrapping. 5 by 7 feet covers a mature foundation shrub.
$29.99
See it on Amazon
Led Christmas Net Lights Outdoor Christmas Bushes Lights 120Led 6ftx5ft
Connectable nets, so a row of shrubs runs off one plug instead of one extension cord each. That single feature is what keeps a bed from turning into a cord nest.
$33.99
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Kringle Traditions Clear Christmas Trunk Wrap Lights with 100 Lamps on…
The tallest coverage here at 2 by 8 feet, for a mature trunk where a 6-foot net would leave a dark band above the wrap.
$19.99
See it on Amazon
Wintergreen Lighting 70 Warm White LED StretchNet Pro Expandable Christmas…
An expandable stretch net for a medium trunk. Stretch nets take a fraction of the time of hand-wrapping and, unlike wrapping, they come off in one piece in January.
$23.99
See it on Amazon
Wintergreen Lighting Warm White LED Tree Trunk Wrap Lights
Brown wire on a trunk wrap is the whole trick — it disappears against bark in daylight, which is the other twenty hours of the day your display is visible.
$45.99
See it on Amazon
Wintergreen Lighting 70 5mm Warm White LED Icicle Christmas Lights
Commercial-grade 5mm icicles on white wire in short 7-foot sections. Short sections are the point: you buy the number you need for the eave and skip the bunched-up surplus.
$24.99
See it on Amazon
33FT 400 LED Icicle Lights for Outside, Warm White Christmas Lights Outdoor
400 LEDs across 33 feet, so the drops are dense. Dense icicles photograph well but hide the roofline — run them on a porch or a single elevation, not the whole house.
$25.99
See it on AmazonPrices checked Jul 27, 2026 and may change. As an Amazon Associate, Christmas Lights North Atlanta earns from qualifying purchases. We only list gear we would put on a customer's house; we buy our own commercial stock through distributors, not Amazon, so treat these as the closest equivalents a homeowner can actually order.
Tree and shrub lighting questions
How many lights do I need to wrap a tree?
Multiply the trunk's circumference in feet by the number of turns you will make. Turns equals the wrap height in inches divided by your spacing. A 12-inch trunk is about 3.14 feet around, and 8 feet of height at 3-inch spacing is 32 turns, so it needs roughly 101 feet of lights. A mature 24-inch oak wrapped the same way takes about 200 feet. Our tree wrap calculator does this for any tree.
What is the difference between 5mm wide-angle and standard mini lights?
A wide-angle 5mm bulb has a faceted conical lens that throws light out sideways rather than straight along the string. On a wrapped trunk that is the difference between an evenly lit column and a bright stripe with two dark sides. It is the most visible quality difference on a tree and it costs very little more.
Are net lights any good, or should I wrap by hand?
For rounded shrubs and plain trunks, nets are as good and take a fraction of the time - about a minute to throw over a boxwood versus twenty minutes of wrapping. They also come off in one piece in January instead of unwinding turn by turn. Hand-wrapping wins where the shape is irregular or where you want light following specific limbs.
What spacing should I wrap a tree at?
Three inches between turns is the standard and what we use by default. Two inches is very dense and doubles the light needed for the same tree; four inches is a lighter touch and uses noticeably less. Whatever you choose, keep it consistent up the whole trunk - uneven spacing is far more visible at night than you expect.
Should tree lights be on green wire or brown wire?
Brown for trunks and branches, green for shrubs and anything with foliage around it. The wire is visible for the twenty hours a day the lights are off, and matching it to the bark or the leaves is the cheapest way to make a display look considered rather than draped.
Can I leave lights wrapped on a tree year round?
We do not recommend it. Wire left on a growing trunk can bite in as the tree expands, sun degrades the insulation, and a set left out for twelve months rarely survives to a second season. Take them down in January - which is also the argument for stretch nets over hand-wrapping.
Big trees need a lift, not a ladder
Wrapping the canopy of a mature hardwood is not ladder work. We light trees as part of a full display across the North Atlanta suburbs.