The best lighted birch trees, ranked on LEDs per published foot

How we ranked these

Published LED count divided by published height, because that is the figure that decides whether the tree glows or outlines, and because five of these six give you both numbers. Then weather rating, which almost nobody publishes. Then control — a timer and a dimmer. Then spec completeness.

We have not lit or weathered any of these. Everything in the table is a figure a listing prints, and the per-foot column is ours. Live prices under every buy button are refreshed daily and stamped with the date they were read.

LEDs per foot, and the ten-to-one spread

A lighted birch tree is a bare armature: a white-wrapped trunk, branches of thinner wrapped wire, and an LED string run out along them. There is no foliage to hide behind and nothing else to judge. The number of points of light over the height of the frame is the product.

For comparison, the pre-lit potted foliage trees on porch Christmas trees publish 80 to 100 LEDs on a 3 to 4 ft body — 25 to 33 per foot. Those are a different object with foliage to diffuse the light, so the numbers are not directly comparable, but it tells you that three of the birch trees here are no brighter than a potted fir while being a foot or two taller and completely bare.

Trees, branches, and the two completely different jobs

Five of these are trees with a standing base. One is a bundle of 30 inch branches with no trunk and no base at all, and it is not a cheaper version of the same thing.

If what you want in an urn is an arrangement rather than bare lit twigs, the stems-in-foam approach is on winter urn fillers, and the equivalent fall version is on fall urn fillers. Lit birch branches are the simplest possible urn filler and the one that works from December into February.

Weather, and the one rating in the field

Five of these six are sold for outdoor use. One publishes an ingress rating. That is the honest state of this category.

IP44 means protection against solid objects over 1 mm and against splashing water from any direction. On a tree standing on a lawn in December that is the right level: it covers rain and sleet landing on it, and it does not cover standing water or a connector lying in a puddle. Everything else here is sold as indoor and outdoor with nothing behind the claim, which means treating the connector as the weak point regardless of what the frame can take.

Timer, dimmer, and why a dimmer matters more here

Three products here publish a timer and two publish a dimmer. On most lighting a timer is the valuable one; on a birch tree the dimmer is close behind it, and the reason is the density spread.

A 945 LED tree in a small front garden is a lot of light with no way to pull it back. A dimmer turns one tree into a tree you can match to the rest of the display, which matters because a bare armature at high density is brighter per square foot than almost anything else people put outdoors. The general comparison between a plug-in timer and a smart plug — which is how you add a schedule to the three trees here that have none — is on light timer vs smart plug, and the load question for a garden full of these is on how many amps.

Why bare branches stay up when a lit fir comes down

This is the real argument for the category and nothing in the listings makes it.

A lit fir — potted, flocked, garlanded — is Christmas, and on the 6th of January it looks like something nobody got round to. A bare white armature of lit twigs is not Christmas at all: it is winter. It goes up in late November with everything else and it is still correct in February, when the rest of the display is in the loft and the garden is empty. That makes it one of the few things on this site with a genuine ten-week season rather than a five-week one.

The same instinct drives the whole page on winter decorations to leave up after Christmas and the year-round argument on year-round outdoor lighting. If a display has to come down in one session in early January, a birch tree is the thing to leave standing.

So which one

For a front garden or a path edge where you want the tree to be the display, the 5 ft with 945 LEDs, a timer and a published IP44. For the same look at a sensible price, the IJG 5 ft at 80 per foot, with a plug-in timer bought alongside. For indoors in a vase, the LITBLOOM 30 in branches, which are the only product here with a timer and a dimmer. For the tallest single tree at the lowest price, accepting a sparse outline, the TW SHINE 6 ft. For a matched 6 ft pair with both controls, the EAMBRITE — read the LED figure on the order page first. And if you were about to buy on price alone, do the division first.