How to Decorate Palm Trees for Christmas: 4 Steps to Light Up Your Landscape

We strongly advise you to skip this project if you have tall palm trees and are not experienced in using a ladder and working at heights. With some palm trees hitting 70 feet or more, this is an extremely dangerous DIY that could lead to serious injury.

Working on tall palms requires specialized safety equipment like harnesses, hitch pulleys, and rigging plates that most homeowners won’t have or know how to use properly.

Keep things merry and bright this season by hiring a holiday decorating pro near you who can safely decorate palm trees for you instead. Some local palm tree companies may offer this service as well.

If you have short palm trees you can wrap with lights without the use of a ladder (step stool only), you might be able to tackle this project yourself. Buy heavy-duty gloves, safety goggles, and a heavy, long-sleeve shirt, pants, and boots to protect yourself before you start.

If your palm tree is due for a routine tree service, it’s important to ensure no fronds fall off while you’re wrapping the tree. You don’t want to get whacked in the head—or worse—during the installation.

It’s a good idea to prune palm trees in the spring, but if you see brown fronds, you’ll want to hire a local tree pruning company to remove old, dead fronds before installing lights.

Installing Christmas lights on trees might not be the most difficult project, but it’s certainly a frustrating one if you run out of lights halfway through the installation. Getting the correct length will save you the chore of having to return to the store to buy more.

To calculate what length of string lights you’ll need, divide your palm tree’s height by how far apart you want the wrapping, then multiply that number by the circumference of the tree. For example, If your palm tree is 8 feet tall with a 2-foot circumference, and you want to wrap the strings with 3 inches of space between the lights, your equation will look like this:

• 8 feet / 0.25 feet of space = 32 x 2 = 64 feet of lighting

Note: If the space between your lights is in inches, you’ll need to convert this to feet. Look for brown Christmas light cords, so they match the trunk of your palm tree.

Without experience working on a ladder and specialized safety gear, you will be at risk of seriously injuring yourself due to falling from a ladder or climbing equipment. Hire a pro instead who can safely decorate palm trees for Christmas for you. As an alternative, you can decorate an outdoor Christmas tree for a safer and easier DIY. With the extension cord unplugged, plug a strand of lights into the extension cord, then start wrapping the string around the base of the trunk. As you wrap the lights, move up the trunk with the correct spacing from your calculations—if you choose a space of 3 inches, move upwards, maintaining that spacing.

You’ll need a helper for this section. Depending on how tall your palm tree is, use a step stool or ladder to continue wrapping the holiday lights around the tree. Ensure the ladder is on level ground and that you follow ladder safety measures to keep the project injury-free.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has a ladder safety guide that recommends a three-point contact at all times (two hands and a foot, or two feet and a hand) when climbing or descending a ladder.

While you’re working your way up the trunk, you may need to secure the strings to the tree if you haven’t pulled them tightly around the trunk. Alternatively, you can unwind them a bit to rewrap them more firmly. If you decide to secure the strings, here’s where your heavy-duty staple gun comes in handy.

Keep in mind that the metal can pose a fire hazard if you don’t staple them correctly. To prevent this, secure the wires between the sides of the staples—do not staple directly through the wires.

The hardest part of decorating a palm tree for Christmas is the fronds. While you don’t have to hang Christmas lights on them, they add a major pop of color to your tree. 

If you decide to put lights on the fronds, you can put a string of lights down the center of each frond and use plastic zip ties to secure them—not metal twisty ties. It’s easiest to install lights on the bottom fronds closest to the trunk—it’s truly all you need to create a beautiful display for the holiday season.