How many lights it takes to wrap a trunk, a column or a shrub

The formula, in one line

Feet of light needed equals the circumference of what you are wrapping, multiplied by the number of wraps. The number of wraps is the height you are covering divided by the vertical gap you want between turns.

That is why wrapping consumes strings at a rate outlining never does. A 100-count LED mini string publishes a 33-foot lighted length at 4-inch spacing, so the example above needs two of them and leaves a little spare. Two mature trees flanking a drive will take six to eight.

The gap between turns decides the look

A tight wrap reads as a solid column of light and eats strand; a loose wrap reads as a spiral and shows the bark between turns. Neither is wrong, but they are different decisions and they have very different bills.

Which string suits which job

Three details separate a string that wraps well from one that fights you: wire color, wire flexibility and how the string connects to the next one.

Wire color is the one nobody thinks about until daylight. A wrapped trunk is looked at in the dark for four hours and in daylight for twenty. Green wire disappears on bark and evergreen; white wire disappears on a painted column, a white railing or a flocked tree, and is glaringly obvious on anything dark. The same Northlight string is published in green wire and white wire with identical specifications — 100 LEDs, 4 in spacing, 33 ft lighted length — so this is a free decision if you make it before you order.

Mapped strings are for the tree you look at closely. The 400-LED Twinkly string publishes 105 feet of length with individually addressable RGB+W LEDs, which is enough strand to wrap a substantial trunk in one piece and then run effects along it. Note the published IP44 rating: that is rain, not immersion, so it belongs on a trunk under cover or in a climate that does not pond water. The full smart-lighting comparison is on smart Christmas lights.

Shrubs are not trunks. A dense shrub has no single axis to wrap and spiralling one by hand is an hour you will not enjoy. A 14.8 by 5 foot net drops over the whole thing in one movement and reads as even coverage. The published limit — a maximum of two sets end to end — is the number to plan a long hedge around.

Getting power to the base of the tree

A wrapped tree is usually the furthest thing from the house in the whole display, and the cord is doing the work. A 50-foot 16 AWG green outdoor cord publishes a 13 A rating on an outdoor SJTW jacket, and the green jacket is the point: it is the run you would rather not see crossing a lawn. For a heavier load, or where the cord feeds the whole display rather than one tree, step up to 14 gauge — the gauge argument is laid out on our cord comparison.

The order that saves an hour

Wrap from the base upward with the plug end at the bottom, so the male end finishes nearest the outlet and you are not left needing an extra ten feet at ground level. Test every string on the ground before it goes up. And wind them onto reels when they come down — a strand that was wrapped tightly around bark for six weeks is exactly the kind that turns into a knot in a box. The reel picks are on the best light storage reels.