July 8, 2025 • 44 mins
Join Mike and Trey Farley of Farley Pool Designs on the Luxury Outdoor Living Podcast as they delve into the world of luxurious backyard retreats. In this episode, they interview Brandon, the sales manager from Illuminated Trees, who shares the fascinating journey and unique features of hyper-realistic illuminated trees. Discover how these artful creations, used in venues from Las Vegas casinos to high-end restaurants, can transform any space. Learn about the design process, customization options, energy efficiency, and practical tips for installation and maintenance. Plus, explore the innovative ways homeowners and businesses can incorporate these enchanting trees into their outdoor landscapes. Whether it's for a cozy backyard or a dramatic indoor setting, these illuminated trees promise to add a touch of magic to any environment.
Discover more:
https://www.illuminatedtrees.com/
https://www.farleypooldesigns.com/ https://www.instagram.com/farleydesigns/ https://www.instagram.com/luxuryoutdoorlivingpodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/poolzila/
00:00 Introduction to Luxury Outdoor Living Podcast 01:16 Guest Introduction: Brandon from Illuminated Trees 02:01 The Story Behind Illuminated Trees 03:28 Understanding the Product: What is an Illuminated Tree? 09:18 Design and Customization of Illuminated Trees 14:18 Barbecue Bits: Big Green Egg Lighter 17:39 Maintenance and Practical Tips for Illuminated Trees 22:25 Durability and Color of White Leaves 25:11 Cost and Customization of Trees 27:45 Energy Efficiency and International Reach 38:48 Design Flexibility and Unique Applications 41:57 Closing Thoughts and Contact Information
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to Luxury Outdoor LivingPodcast with Mike and Trey
Farley of Farley Pool Designs.
For over 40 years, we've helpedhomeowners turn their backyards
into personal retreats, spaces ofjoy, relaxation and unforgettable
memories, and whether it's a cozy as.
Scape or a resort style oasis.
We design it all.
(00:24):
We know how overwhelming a projectcan feel, and nothing feels worse than
a homeowner having a bad experience.
And that's why after decades ofdesigning and teaching in this
industry, we're here to share ourknowledge, helping you navigate.
The process with confidence.
Every week we break down designtrends and insider tips that
turn your vision into reality.
(00:45):
And since this is about creating somethingamazing together, drop a comment.
If you have any questions, ideas, orjust want to be part of the conversation,
if you find this helpful, a like helpsget this out to more people like you.
And if you want to keep upwith what's next, go ahead
and hit that subscribe button.
We'd love to have you along for the ride.
Let's build your paradise together.
(01:17):
Well this is Mike Farley with LuxuryOutdoor Living Podcast sponsored by
Farley Pool Designs, and we have agreat guest today to talk about a
wonderful product that I've lookedat and admired for a number of years.
We have Brandon today with illuminatedTrees and he's going to give us a
lot of information about his product.
(01:37):
Brandon, why don't you start and giveus a little background about you.
Yeah I'm a sales managerof illuminated trees.
I was in the military and stuff like that.
Did a lot of traveling.
I've always been into art.
I ran into Johnny at onepoint he's an artist at heart.
He's been designingthese trees for 20 years.
so we hit it off real well andhe invited me in I've just
been working with him since.
It's an interesting product.
(01:57):
It's a niche for sure.
It started out small andhas grown quite large.
give us a little bit ofhistory about the company.
The way it kicked off Johnnywas always into design.
He was doing lights and allsorts of stuff for a while.
And then he starteddoing those iron trees.
And I don't know if you know,about 20 years ago people were
starting to get into iron trees.
Then you started seeing 'em with liketwinkle lights on 'em and stuff like that.
(02:19):
And it was bringing the outside in.
Has always been a popularthing in design in general.
trees are, such a primal love forus, having that comfort of a tree.
It's food, it's shade,it's sustenance in general.
as he progressed from designingthat, he started having requests
for more and more realistic trees.
Can you make it this way?
Can you make it that way?
So on and so forth.
(02:40):
And we eventually got to where we're atnow, which is a Hyperrealistic product.
The biggest thing about it is the factthat you can't see any of the wiring.
And so when somebody passes by it,whether it's at range or up close,
it's almost surreal as to try to figureout how those lights are in there.
'Cause what we actually do iswe actually use the lights as
(03:00):
the attachment for the leaves.
So you don't reallyactually see the bulbs.
It gives you a really nice, classyshine, we've worked with the Bellagio.
we're in the wind, we're in the Luxor.
we're done most of thecasinos across Vegas.
And we also as you had mentionedbefore, we worked with Westmont.
So we do a lot of interior,exterior, residential design.
And in general, the productsare four season products.
We're a certainly depending on theenvironment, we recommend different styles
(03:22):
of build or different styles of leaf.
We are designed to be able tohandle the weather and we've got 'em
all over the world at this point.
Brandon for someone that's hearingthis for the first time, they don't
know exactly what illuminated tree is.
we've done landscape lightingon this podcast before.
What is a illuminated tree?
Is it, rope lighting?
Is it actual, the leaves are lit up?
the trunk, is it lit up at all?
(03:42):
Is is this something you add toa tree or is it completely like a
synthetic tree like you're describing?
Can you just elaborate forsomeone that might have no
idea what we're talking about?
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, just from base build of theproduct, what we do is we create
a design, any style of tree.
We've got thousands ofdesigns of tree at this point.
But it's a steel frame, and thenit's wrapped in a resin wrap.
(04:04):
so basically it's hand sculptedinto whatever model or form that
we've created that trying toreach with this particular tree.
Once it's built and it's solidified,we cut and modularize it.
They're easier to put together than Legos.
It's really just a tongue and groovekind of slide in thing once you get it.
But, the trunk comes in two forms.
You can even get the straight resin.
So for like very cold environments,I've sold a lot of trees up in Canada.
(04:26):
And we offer two trunks.
We have our, resin, which is ournatural brown trunk, and then we have a
hyperrealistic trunk, which actually ismade from a hand sculpted fiberglass.
And what we found is in extremelycold temperatures that stuff
tends to crack real hard.
Fiberglass doesn't reallydo too well at negative 30.
Wow.
But not much does
No, me either.
it's fully synthetic.
(04:46):
So yeah, it's steel resin, fiberglass.
And then we have a wiring harnessthat runs up through the tree.
first of all, the bottom ofthe tree comes with a bolt.
Pattern.
and every tree comeswith zinc anchor bolts.
And people will do lotsof things with 'em.
Like some people will want todrop 'em straight into their slab.
Other people like the idea ofbeing able to move the tree around.
They'll do things like buy large treeplanters and pour 'em half full of
(05:07):
concrete and drop the tree down in there.
Then they can move it around on a dolly.
But the power actually set up.
We have a hatch on the back of thetree, so you can route it outta the
back of the tree, or you can dropit straight down through, and it
makes it very hard to see the wiring.
In general.
Everything runs straightup through the tree.
most people have dealt with syntheticChristmas trees at this point.
you have to fluff those branchesand do a good job of making
it very natural looking.
(05:28):
And that's one of thebiggest things with our tree.
Leaves generally grow towards the sun.
Kind of give it, like a 3D pullout effect.
It just takes a little time to makethem look real natural for you.
But once you get 'em there, theleaves actually attach to the lights.
You don't really see the bulbs.
'cause the lights actually are wiredall the way down into the tree.
It's a hundred percenta standalone product.
Wow.
Yeah, they're gorgeous.
I'm looking at photos right nowI wasn't sure if how the lights
(05:50):
on the individual leaves worked.
'cause it looks like everysingle leaf is lit up.
It's insane.
Well actually the way that works iswe've got LEDs it's a low voltage system.
Even our large trees are generallyusing less than a couple hundred watts.
But the leaf is that we've got it.
I mean, Obviously it's justsoldered into those little branches.
And then what we do is dependingon the environment, we'll actually.
(06:11):
Permanently attach, with adhesive,put the leaves over those lights
they clip on, and we attach thoseleaves so you don't actually see
the bulb, in a really overt way.
And it allows that kind of natural look.
And one of the other cool things is alot of LED products don't dim very well.
They tend to flicker,when you try to dim them.
our RGBW lights do tend to flicker.
(06:31):
There's a problem with RG bws,it's a difficult thing to solve.
But our warm white lights are actuallyset up on a resistor so that we can dim
those all the way down to three, 4%.
It allows us to be very ambientin an environment instead of
being the absolute focal point.
It's a very relaxing thingto have in an environment.
I'm sure you can see some of thosepictures where we have 'em in high-end
restaurants and stuff like that.
Most of their most requestedtables are all under the trees.
(06:53):
Just to clarify, you mentioned extremecold minus 30 below, so it can work
in really hot temperatures outsideas well as cold temperatures outside.
Yeah, absolutely.
So we have trees all over the place.
Arizona is one of the premier spotsthat we've had to work to make sure
our product can withstand, even withArizona, there's still gonna be certain
(07:14):
leaves and certain styles of tree thatI would recommend or not recommend
based on the extreme conditions there.
the light bulbs themselves willhandle down to about negative
I wanna say negative 30.
And we'll get up to about one50 with as far as heat goes.
And they are rated at a hundredthousand plus hours, like the
trees we have in the Luxor Hotel.
I don't think they've beenturned off in 10 years.
(07:34):
Okay.
Wow.
So size of these, I've seen somethat, they're like 10 feet tall.
They're in a backyardsetting type situation.
So is there a certain size asin small or a certain size as in
large that you stop and start at?
we, build trees in the range of twoand a half, up to about 33 feet.
(07:56):
We've made some monsters.
We've done some really wild stuff.
we filled out the Oscars one year.
We did the Oscar dinner.
We did a Arkansas Governor's inauguration.
We do a lot of EDMfestivals, things like that.
And, depending on the environment,people want an array of trees.
Like one of the things that we do atshows that really sets us apart, like
we get Best Booth pretty regularlybecause, we do is we create a forest
(08:18):
and the more these trees you have in aspot, the more enchanting it becomes.
It really takes you away.
It's overwhelming because you're not usedto this, having this level of aesthetic
with no wiring and stuff like that.
As far as sizing goes, though we domake a really wide range of trees.
You can range, again, and somebodycould call me and say, okay,
look, I've had, actually, I hada customer a little while back.
They were like, they sent me a picture ofthe spiral staircase and it was beautiful.
(08:39):
you know, it was maybe Four foothole up the center of the staircase,
and they wanted it to come allthe way up through and then.
Canopy above it at the topof the staircase and give
you this canopy coming over.
And it was beautiful.
And we can do lots of customwork like that if people give us
dimensions and stuff like that.
We have wall trees thatare flat on one side.
They're really great for creatinghedges and stuff like that.
(09:01):
People will stack 'em together and witha broad leaf, they do a good job of doing
things like buffering down sound andstuff like that in a room that echoes.
We also make 90 degree trees thatkind of come up in a corner and then.
Canopy pushes out into the room,but you're not losing all that
floor space, having it pushed outoff the corner, things like that.
Awesome.
So how does a, design processgo if someone calls, walk
(09:23):
us through how that, works.
So either myself or Johnny.
We'll, talk to customer, we'llask for photos and such like that.
Kind of Ask what kind offeel they're going for.
Like for a high-end restaurant, theygenerally want to go with just the warm
white lighting because it gives a classiereffect, it allows them to dim and such,
whereas we work with a lot of familyhomes and even event centers and stuff
(09:43):
like that, they wanna be able to theme.
So they'll go with color changing lights.
But generally speaking, once you.
Have contacted us.
Johnny does most all the design still.
But we will sit down and justtake a look at it, get the
dimensions it's pretty simple.
Tell us, show us a picture, give us themeasurements, tell us what it is you want
it to do, and we will get it done for you.
(10:05):
How customiz are these?
is there's like certain templatesbecause it looks like they have
multiple types of trees and so I'mguessing like the leaves and the
actual trees are customizable, right?
Well, yeah.
So the way our order process reallyworks is we figure out the model of
tree you're gonna be on, what size,what shape, all that fun stuff.
And then we choose the style oflighting, and then we choose the leaf.
(10:26):
And we have about 60 differentvariations of leaf right now.
if somebody's looking for a specificthing, like we had a customer a little
while back, we have post oak, liveoak, and then we have those in not
only the natural oak, but we alsohave those in like autumn colors.
Well, this person wanted a purple oak,so we just, it's a little bit extra cost.
So we, but we created a purple leaf.
We had somebody a while back ask us,I can't even remember the name of the
(10:48):
leaf now, but basically we had to opena new mold for them and in that case,
it could cost a couple of an extracouple thousand dollars for us to
have to open a new mold and create acompletely new style of leaf for you.
But that's again, not somethingthat's outside our range.
We don't generally say no to alot, and I think that's one of the
reasons we have such a large catalog.
We do have a list.
Of trees that are standard buildsfor us, but really I'd say custom
(11:12):
to standard is kind of 50 50 for us.
Okay.
So I noticed a list of trees andI was surprised 'cause you had
everything from olives to palmsto, pines and Japanese maple.
Japanese maple marijuana.
Yeah, that was an interesting one.
So that could be an interesting tree.
how does it perform atnight versus during the day?
(11:33):
Do they keep 'em lit 24 7 or is itsomething like, they look so good, you
just turn off the lights during the day?
Or how does that typically go?
I mean, It depends on thecustomer or a lot of people.
it depends on how you look at LEDs.
Some people look at'em like diesel trucks.
They're better just leave 'em on, yeah.
But most people I think,put 'em on timers.
As far as people that aredoing real installs for their
yard or something like that.
(11:54):
But during the day you turn those lightsoff, it just looks like a natural tree,
especially if you got a real natural leaf.
And one of the other things that we alwayslike to tell people is, when ordering
one of our trees, it's not necessarilyjust a one aesthetic forever thing.
If you wanna order an extra set of litbranches with different leaves on them
so you can change seasons or whatever itis you're looking to do, you can do that.
(12:15):
Oh, wow.
Oh, sweet.
Oh.
That never crossed my mind.
Uh, Yeah, so like you have an aspen,so you can have an Aspen that's in
the fall and yellow leaves, or youcould have an aspen that's green.
So that's really cool.
weeping, I think would look really cool.
Do you do many weeping styletrees like a weeping willow?
Yeah, they got that.
We do absolutely have weeping willows.
it's a large number of lights for sure.
(12:37):
Yeah.
We don't necessarily recommend the weepingwillow for outdoor use in places with
any kind of high wind because the biggestdifference, obviously, between our weeping
willow and a real weeping willow isthat a real weeping willow doesn't have
wires that could tangle with each other.
the way our leaves and everythingon there, there's, sticking out
off of that branch that's hangingand they can get hung up on each
other and it can look a little odd.
(12:59):
But we do make weeping willows.
We make them in all sizes.
In fact we showed a monster lastyear about a 20 footer at transworld
Christmas show in St. Louis.
they're really beautiful andyou can get 'em in any leaf.
It's, we have standardweeping willow leaves.
We have green, we have clearweeping willow leaves, we can
put jasmine flowers on it.
We can put oak leaves on it.
We can put a lot of people, whatthey like to buy is white leaves.
(13:20):
Like we have white maple,white ginkgo white jasmine.
And the reason they like the whitewith the RGBW color lighting is
because since the white leaves lacktheir own pigment, then whatever color
you choose, they fully saturate andget the whole tree glows that color.
That's cool.
It
also gives a cool aestheticduring the day probably too.
'cause you have the lightsoff, it's a white leaf.
You don't see that in, in nature.
(13:41):
Yeah.
It's a stark contrast tomost people's environments.
it definitely standsout really beautifully.
Because it's an LED light, then wedon't have a issue with it in proximity
to the swimming pool with water in it.
No, not at all.
I mean, we, filled out, we'vedone a lot of swimming pool
design and stuff like that.
Like we actually work with some swimmingpool building companies that use us
(14:02):
to kind of decorate around the edges.
And, some people will want to go withpalm trees, we do make palm trees we
make 'em quite large all the way up tolike 18 feet straight or curved trunk.
a lot of people actually, theydon't want the palm trees.
They want the large trees withlarge canopies, and it creates
shade around their pools.
We are gonna take a break here for asecond and get into outdoor living.
(14:23):
So with outdoor living, we like togo to barbecue bits here we're gonna
share some information of everythingthat you may want to consider in
your outdoor living space as far asfeatures, especially for the kitchen.
Hope you enjoy this.
I get one complaintabout the big green egg.
Mm-hmm.
It takes too long to get going.
(14:44):
Right.
Okay.
I'm a patient individual.
I usually tell people, listen,go light your green egg.
Go prep your food.
Sure.
By the time you prep your food, sure.
Your egg, a lot of times willbe ready to use right now.
The challenge is that is,oh, it's just steak night.
Right.
And I needed it at 700 degrees.
Right.
Well, that takes a little bitwhile to get going, right?
(15:05):
So there's a solution, correct?
There is a solution.
Okay.
Please explain.
And this makes it ease of use.
So this is a, um, this is aelectric lighting solution.
It's made by a loof lighter.
What it is, you can imagine being justa hot hair dryer and how this works.
It's got a 12 foot cord.
Doesn't take, uh, doesn'tpull a lot of amperages.
You don't throw breakers.
(15:25):
As you can see, the element screennose on the end, it gets extremely hot.
So when I fill my charcoal up intothis grill, at first what I'll do
is I'll put the nose of this ontothe charcoal and then hit the start
button within about 12 to 15 seconds.
Once you see it spark, then youback it off a couple of inches.
Keep keep it held downand what will happen.
(15:47):
And within 90 seconds you'll getthis grill up to 500 5600 degrees.
90
seconds.
90 seconds.
Yeah, just hold it on there.
Now some people will do two areas,but I'll go in the center point on
any grill, and when it starts toilluminate and get really red in
your charcoal, then I'll be done.
I'll take it away, and then however,I'm gonna cook more than likely.
(16:07):
If I want it quick, I'mgonna go direct grilling.
So I'll put the cookinggrid back on right.
Then I'll shut my egg in.
Don't never, never leave your egg open.
Always shut it down and let theheat absorb into the ceramic
itself and open up your air.
Open up your air channels.
Then it gives you a nice controlpoint, but it lights very, very quick.
As of breakaway starters, sometimesyou light 'em, sometimes they don't.
(16:29):
They smoke.
You have to fight through all that.
With this, it's really clean, ease of use.
Quick lighting solution.
It should be in everyone's arsenalif they have a ceramic grill.
So
I'm doing ribs.
The big challenge with thatis for me to get clear smoke.
That's correct.
Okay.
So I want my clear smokeversus my billowing.
That's correct.
Gray stuff.
So it help me get that quicker as well.
(16:50):
It'll help you get there quicker.
And also, um, you don't haveto fight through all that.
Once you light your charcoal, then Ican set my chunks in there and like
you said, go in and prep my ribs.
Then get to my blue smokeinstead of getting outta my
white to my blue smoke mode.
Okay.
Where it's the most penetrating smoke.
But you probably wouldn't run itfor 90 seconds to get, you would.
You would, and then use this as
a control point.
(17:11):
All you'll have to do, I've gotit wide open on direct drilling.
All you have to do is leave a third of thespace open and it'll deprive it of air.
Meet that
and hold.
Yeah.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Wow.
Great.
Christmas present.
Great.
Christmas present.
Okay.
Well thank you very much.
Yeah.
So I hope you enjoyed the barbecuebits that we just featured today, and
we'll have more coming up next week.
If there's something in particular thatyou're interested for, let us know and
(17:35):
we'll get back into the episode now.
So if you were going to recommendsomething to a homeowner that they
wouldn't think about what wouldbe the tip you would give 'em?
Hey, make sure you do this.
This would be really cool, especiallyfor a residential situation.
Any particular tip?
I think that as far as our treesgo, this is a very subtle product.
(17:56):
And if you're just looking to createan essence of magic in the home, that
is not something that is just gonnajump out at everybody immediately.
It's a really greatproduct in that aspect.
Like we've done somereally beautiful stuff.
Like for example, because we cango so custom with our canopies.
We've had people order.
Trees for their living room whereit comes out of the corner and then
(18:17):
stretches across their living room.
And then at night when they sitdown, they flick it on, and they dim
down the tree and they're sittingunder this beautiful tree while they
watch, a movie with their family.
So there's really a lot of waysto let's face it, it's a frivolous
product as far as it goes, but it'sa magical product and it really
creates a lot of feeling in your home.
Well, it's an interesting thing too,because My background is I have a
(18:37):
degree in landscape architecture, andI've been doing this for 40 years, but
in the last five years I've had a lotof people that are like, I'm really
into low maintenance and I reallydon't like plants, but I want you to
create something that looks natural.
So the turf started this whole situation.
We do all this natural.
(18:58):
I mean we do synthetic turf in backyardsand people are like, I really like that.
And so then we started doing syntheticboxwood for screening and fencing and you
know, I got a project right now we've got300 feet of, synthetic boxwood hedges.
That are all incorporated oversteel frames and stuff like that.
But, people are like, I don'twant plants 'cause they die.
(19:20):
And so I want somethingthat's gonna look really cool.
So this takes it to another level.
This takes it, I. To, I can now have,trees to go along with my box with hedges.
then the bonus of all bonusesis lighting is a huge thing and
becoming more and more important.
And now we can light this at night.
Yeah.
Which is amazing.
(19:40):
And it's magical too like youwas saying, those things are
replicating actual nature.
This is something that isn't possiblein nature and that's so cool.
'cause like I play, this isjust a little side tangent.
I play a lot of video games and a lotof the really good looking video games
that are being successful now are tappinginto environments that glow like this,
like Elden ring and stuff like that.
(20:00):
Which is.
It's surreal that, that's actuallypossible with your product.
Well, not to cut you off, but forme, like when I first got into these
trees, it reminded me of like theavatar environment and stuff like that.
It's that kind of stuff.
Absolutely.
you're right.
A hundred percent popular inthe movement as far as design
and which way we're going.
But as far as maintenance goeson the trees if you put this tree
indoors, man, Unless maybe after 10,15 years the power box or something
(20:25):
burns out or something like that andyou can just get a new one from us.
We warranty 'em for three years,structurally, electronically.
But if you ever have a light go out oranything like that, you send it to us.
If we can fix it, we will.
If we can't, we'll replace it.
But indoors very little to no maintenance.
You can dust it, you can blow it off.
Pneumatic hose, whatever itis you want to do outdoors.
The way we tell peopleto install them outdoors.
(20:47):
And as long as they do it correctly,it's pretty low maintenance.
We just have them silicone, all thejoints and where all the branches
connect and stuff like that.
And then, obviously, we can't, I.Stop the sun from doing what it does.
But we have noticed, at least with ourtrunk, that the patina is not unnatural.
The leaves themselves, depending onwhat environment you're in, obviously
your leaves are gonna last longer inIllinois than they are gonna in Arizona.
(21:12):
and we sell the leaves at cost.
they're not expensive.
You know, they're all lessthan a dollar a piece.
depending on how many leaves, But asfar as it goes high sun environments
and stuff like that, we're gonnarecommend certain leaves and generally
you're gonna get four to six years.
Before you really have to dotoo much worrying about that.
And then again, if you have a broadleaf, most of the leaves, they're
gonna have any effect from the sunare only gonna be on the outside.
(21:34):
You're probably not gonna have toreplace all of them because a lot
of 'em are catching their own shade.
as far as maintenancegoes, that's about it.
If it's outside and you sealit up properly, when it gets
dirty, just spray it off.
And in a snowy environment, justyou know, in Colorado they're taught
out there not to let your deck fillup with three to five feet of snow.
If you wake up in the morning andit's snowing real heavy, make sure
you're going out there shakingoff your tree every now and then.
(21:54):
'cause you don't want 300pounds of snow on your tree.
Yeah.
Are they using broad leaves becauseof the reason you said, or is there
other reasons, like maybe materialsfor the leaves that they would
use 'cause maybe they're more UVresistant or something like that?
All of our EV leaves are UV coated.
As far as broad versus narrow to methat's a purely aesthetic choice.
Okay.
when you get the broad leaves, youget that real big bushy canopy that
(22:17):
you can't see any light through.
Whereas if you were to go withsomething like an aspen, a very small
narrow leaf, you would definitelyget a lot more air in your canopy.
Oh yeah.
So does the white leaf.
Hold up better becausethere's no color to it.
It's not gonna fade.
The white leaf actually does pretty well.
we've had some trial and error definitely.
you know, Let's build itthis way and stick it out in
(22:38):
Arizona and see how it goes.
I'm sorry.
That was an experiment.
Let's do it this way now.
But we've gotten pretty good at it.
The, some environments, like I said,are pretty extreme, but the white
leaves do very well in general, and,the biggest thing is like when you're
changing colors, our RGBW setupoffers you, I wanna say it's nine
or 12 colors including one of thosecolors being the multicolor Christmas.
(22:59):
So you just push the button, you gotChristmas lights then they also have
animation so they'll twinkle and chaseand fade and all that fun stuff too.
And we've actually just this yearstarted designing addressable trees.
Okay.
I was gonna ask you later ifanyone uses these for Christmas
trees, but there you go.
Yeah, absolutely.
I've used one for a Christmas tree.
I had one in my, I was like,kids, let's get a Christmas tree.
They're like, we kind of have a tree.
(23:20):
I was like, all right.
so installation.
Do you install these, if someonein North Texas ordered a tree or
is it getting shipped to 'em and weassemble it here, how does that work?
as far as it goes, as I mentionedearlier, they're easier than Legos.
There's really not that much to it.
It's a tongue and groove setup.
(23:40):
All the branches come with correspondingnumbers on 'em, and it's just a set screw
to set 'em in place for the most part.
If they're under if they're 14 feet orless, we generally say, put together
yourself or grab you a handyman,it's gonna cost you a lot less.
Because anybody that's semi capablecan definitely put these together.
But for the bigger trees andfor larger products where
it's a large number of trees.
(24:01):
definitely in California 'causethat's where we're based.
We go out of our way to helpsome of our large customers.
'cause we've had some customers, theyorder, 1220 foot trees we're gonna
be on site to make sure that's beingdone properly and being done safely.
But.
At the same time it's quite costly,so it's definitely a whole thing
to get us to come out and do aninstall on most of these trees.
Generally speaking, customers figureout how to handle it on their own.
(24:24):
How big a shippingcontainer does it come in?
Is it in a cardboard boxor What's it come in?
Yeah, so the way we do it we havea couple different size, but for
our larger trees, it's like oneof those thin, plywood boxes.
but for most of our trees, up to about13 feet it's gonna be a cardboard box
wrapped in a flat steel welded cage.
depending on the size tree,obviously it's gonna be different.
(24:46):
But like for example, one of our smallerreal popular trees is our 200 model.
That's about six and a half,seven feet when it's fully built.
And that comes in a box that'sactually shippable by UPS.
I wanna say that's no more than threeand a half, four feet long, one by one.
And.
Then you start steppinginto like our 10 foot trees.
Some of those boxes can be, six feet long.
But again, I can put four10 foot trees on a pallet.
(25:08):
So shipping them's not as badas you would think it'd be.
Gotcha.
So cost of a tree, know they'reprobably all individual because they're
customized and everything, but can yougive us a rough idea of what trees cost?
let's say you're looking at, that 200model at six, seven foot, that's a
fairly popular tree as far as they go.
(25:29):
That one's gonna start out when warm whitelights right around that $2,100 range.
And if you wanted to upgrade tothe RGBW lights, we do that at cost
as an upgrade, but that's for thatparticular tree, it's about $200.
Then, we start stepping up to like ourmarquee 10 foot tree, our 300 model.
We're starting to step into that35, 3700 range, depending on
(25:49):
what you're choosing as lights.
and again, like sometimes we'll lookat a 12 foot tree that's gonna cost
less than my 10 foot tree because thelights themselves are 65% of the cost.
And if the canopy on that smalltree is not that large then
it's gonna use less lights.
Makes sense.
You start my 14 foot model, my four40 is a marquee tree for us, for sure.
We sell lots of it.
(26:10):
I wanna say we're up there inthat 9,000 range, 9,500 depending
on, but it's got a lot of lights.
Now you're looking at like 2,700 lightson that, we're paying people to sit
around and solder, 2,700 lights on.
Yeah.
That's a process, no doubt.
Yes, sir.
what's the most expensive tree y'all have?
Like the biggest, most lights?
we've made some real monsters.
(26:31):
We actually put one on top of a bar calledthe Ava Bar in Nashville while back.
It was 20 feet tall and 20feet wide in the canopy.
Oh, wow.
I don't remember the exact numberof that lights on them, but it
was in the tens of thousands.
Okay.
I wanna say that tree.
I don't remember the actual calls.
I could tell you this.
When we started stepping into customtrees, like my AI custom tree we started
playing with AI a little while back ondesigns cause we were trying to build
(26:52):
a Halloween tree, something that wasspooky looking we designed a couple
different things, but we got one, it's18 feet tall, 22 feet wide, and that tree
wholesale, and we are the manufacturer,if you come straight to us, we're gonna
sell it to you at a wholesale, price.
That was about a 25, 20 $6,000 tree.
Okay.
Wow.
But we have made trees up, a hundredthousand dollars trees for sure.
Yeah.
The biggest difference betweenus and a lot of trees, and a
(27:13):
lot of people get it mixed up.
They start looking at theysee some of these really.
Like the Burning Man tree.
I don't know if you've ever seen theBurning Man tree or anything like that,
but these massive sculpted trees, whatthose are is actually sculpted in place.
They're usually done with like plasteror concrete or something like that.
And you have artisans on sitebuilding this tree that the only way
to move it really is to destroy it.
(27:34):
And that's the biggest differencebetween us, you can really, take it to
bar, put it together, stuff like that.
Which is a critical thingto get it in your backyard.
Yeah, for sure, man.
Yeah, for sure.
how energy efficient are these?
it's all set up on a low voltage system.
Most of our trees, like even my 10footer, I wanna say you're using.
Maybe a hundred watts.
(27:55):
It might, even on some of my big,like 14, 15, 16 foot trees, we're
still gonna be under 200 watts.
We're really not gonna be usingenough power to see much of an
effect on your electricity bill.
Unless you've just got apile of trees out there.
Okay.
And it is a standard one 10 outlet.
and I don't know how broad your audiencegets, but we do trees in Europe.
We can set 'em up two 20,all that fun stuff as well.
(28:15):
People hardwire 'em into to theirsystem so they can put 'em up on their
automatic dimmers and all that fun stuff.
So we're definitely able to be integrated.
Okay.
For sure.
So what's the farthest you've sent a tree?
Oh man.
Well, we've got trees like justlast month we sent one to Belgium.
it's a museum and they'resetting it up in there.
(28:36):
it's gonna be really beautiful actually.
We've got some trees down in SouthAmerica Brazil, Argentina I know
we've got a few more across Europe.
I can't really put myfinger on 'em right now.
We've got a, Quite a few ofthem up in Canada as well.
We don't really sell any of 'em in Asia,but they can build 'em their selves.
that's how it goes over there.
You said you're the sales manager,so like you're seeing a bunch of
people come in and ask you questionsand trying to wrap their head
(28:58):
around maybe making this purchase.
So what do you think is the most commonreason homeowners actually go ahead
and pursue getting an illuminated tree?
I think the biggest thing about theilluminated tree as far as actually
making the decision to pull thetrigger it is just understanding
that more than anything, this is nota two year lighting solar product
that you're gonna be throwing away.
(29:19):
this is a piece of art.
It's built out of hardy materials.
It's gonna last you as longas you take care of it, at
least a couple of the decades.
this is most certainly ahigh-end aesthetic for your home.
and it's absolutely a talking point.
We even have people in Airbnbs and stufflike that tell us that you know, it added
value to the environment in general,and they get a lot of compliments on it.
So the biggest thing about this is,I can't possibly say that it's an
(29:42):
absolute need for anybody, but ifwhat you're looking for is creating
feeling and having art in your home.
That's really people's biggestreason for jumping on these things
because they're just looking fora feeling in their environment.
Oh, I heard the word enchantedused in one of the things that you
said earlier, and it seems like itwould create a really cool feeling.
(30:04):
would bet that this issomething that's also.
Would be popular to use in kids' bedrooms?
Yeah.
I can see my grandkids digging thisbig time as a really cool nightlight.
Oh yeah.
No, absolutely dude.
We do.
I have, people ask me all thetime and they say what's the
most normal use for these?
Who's your customer base?
And to be honest, there'snot an answer to that.
(30:25):
'cause it's so broad.
We've got trees and.
In event centers.
We've got trees and hospitals, museums,residences children's bedrooms.
Absolutely.
We've done more than a few of those.
We've got a pile of trees over atthe St. Louis botanical gardens.
So even the botanical gardens, theyuse 'em to light their walkways
and stuff when they're doing shows.
(30:45):
It's a special hybrid.
It's called the luminous variety.
Yeah.
Well, the thing is they're justhyper realist enough, they're just
realistic enough looking to pull it off.
Yeah.
So that's really our biggest thing.
We're always trying to keep theaesthetic at a level where your
company might walk by and just notrealize that's not a real tree.
do y'all do like fruittrees or apple trees?
(31:06):
'cause I was wondering like, doy'all have like apples that go along
with the leaves and stuff like that?
Or is that like moreof a custom type deal?
We have done that.
It's not really requested that much.
We have an apple leaf if we needed toattach, synthetic fruits to it, that's not
something that's out of our wheelhouse.
Some people even do it theirselves.
A lot of people decoratethese on the backside.
(31:27):
But we do that for sure.
If it's needed.
We've done some interesting stuff likeorb, trees and stuff like that where
we've gotta just pick plastic balls on'em going multicolor all over the place.
we also do a lot of flowers.
So we have clustered flowers,like Jasmine, and we do that in
purple, green, blue, red, white.
But those are silk based and we generallyonly recommend them for indoor use.
Okay.
So do you have a showroom that peoplein California come to see all this?
(31:51):
Or is it mainly just through your website?
we had a showroom just a little while backand we actually just moved facilities.
So we haven't set up our new showroom yet.
But will be happening here at some point.
We do have a showroom atthe Amerimart in Atlanta.
Which I don't know if you guysever discussed that, but it's
a huge indoor outdoor design,like commercial sales place.
so we go to that showroomevery now and then.
(32:12):
You can come in there and see our trees.
We actually have a bar inthere and stuff like that.
We'll give you a drinkwhile you look at 'em.
But, no, not currently in California.
We do shows so like we go to theLas Vegas bar and restaurant show.
We do I apa, which is theInternational Amusement Park Show.
We've done the national restaurantshows and stuff like that as well.
That's a lot of the way we get ourtrees out there because the thing
(32:33):
of it is, I could send you a pictureof a 30 foot tree, but you're never
gonna feel the magnitude of it.
Whereas if you just walk into my boothat a show and all of a sudden you're
surrounded by trees that are, two to 15feet tall, it's not that people aren't
smart or anything, it's just that theimagination it takes to like, take this
two and a half foot tree, I'm showing youand realize that at 14 feet that's a lot.
(32:54):
So if someone came to you in thedesign processes, do you have
Hey, I'm in Dallas-Fort Worth.
you have a restaurantthat's got a tree in Dallas?
Would you be able to referus to someone like that?
Yeah.
I mean, If you were to tell uswhat city you were in, we could
certainly look up the people we'vesold to and public business wise.
And we could let you know, likewhat restaurant or something to go
(33:16):
to, to be able to see one for sure.
This year we got I can't remember the nameof the restaurant off the top of my head.
I feel bad about it.
He did a wonderful job.
He put us on TikTok and, we got,I wanna say a couple million hit.
We were overwhelmed.
We were overwhelmed with thephone calls coming off of that.
Most people, I think it's a productthat you see in things like the
Bellagio or something like that.
You don't think that it'spossible to get your hands on it.
(33:38):
But we're very accessible.
And that's what our podcast is allabout, is finding things like you
that are really awesome that peoplejust don't know how to define.
In fact, at this pointhow would they reach you?
What's the best way to reach out to you?
best way to reach us is to go toilluminated trees.com to be real honest,
we are redesigning that website becausewe now have over 11,000 SKUs and it's
(34:02):
just difficult to figure out how tolike, incorporate that into a website.
But you can go there we have a chat boxand that comes directly to our sales team.
we're more than happy to deal withyou directly and we'll give you a
call, whatever it is you wanna do.
Okay.
I'm wondering like, I don't know exactlyhow long in the process you're selling
this product and checking up on itlater or anything like that, but have
(34:25):
you heard, or, from any installersor anything like just nightmares and
stuff, like people should be aware of?
It's like, Hey, don't do this.
This is probably a bad idea.
And maybe it seems like it'sobvious, but to someone out there
that's listening, it might not be
no, absolutely.
I think all companies, anybody thatdesigns any kind of real products,
especially when it comes to outdoorthings goes through trial and error.
(34:47):
We've most certainly experienced, likefor example, when we first started
stepping into really snowy environmentsthere's certain trees with branches at
certain angles that don't seem to handlethe snow as well as other trees, we had
an experience one time where we sold abunch of a model of a tree to a guy and
he got a ton of snow and it broke offsome branches off a few of those trees.
So we had to replaceall that which we did.
(35:09):
It's just a lesson in What we need topay attention to as far as it goes.
we had some issues early on with powerboxes burning out because trees were
sitting out being left on in Arizona heat.
So we had to start looking at differentpower boxes and stuff like that to try
to accommodate that sort of environment.
One of the biggest things thatpeople ask about in the south is hail.
(35:29):
And the biggest thing for me isif you really wanna look at this
product and what it is, this isart more than it is anything.
I recommend insuring it, assuch, it is a high value item.
And I grew up in Texas.
I know all about hail for sure.
And there's sometimesthere's nothing you can do.
Yeah.
You start dropping baseball size hailon something like this, I'm sorry.
(35:52):
It beats, that beats everything up, man.
It's not gonna withstand a tornado.
Yeah.
We, yeah.
Well, I don't know.
Maybe a little one.
Also the other place that really hasextreme condition is the Great Lakes.
they get that ice effect whereyou get that heavy ice that blows
across everything, all that mistblows across and becomes that smooth
ice, thick ice over everything.
So in those cases, I just tell thosepeople, I'm like, to be honest,
(36:15):
you really need to like, take yourtrees down during the winter so you
don't deal with any ice breakage.
Yeah.
Has any, your trees beenstruck by lightning?
Not off the top of my head.
Okay.
No.
oh, one more thing that most people don'task that, but we have absolutely gotten
feedback on is the squirrels hate 'em.
Oh, squirrels hate 'em.
So they're, that's a good thing.
Squirrels hate them.
They're
mess.
(36:35):
They are not gonna mess up your tree.
They don't like it because theycan't dig their claws into 'em.
It's a hard substance.
Maybe they don't like the way itsmells or maybe they don't like
that there's an energy runningthrough it or something like that.
But they just don't like it.
And the birds don't seem tomess with 'em too much either.
No more than sitting on 'em for a second.
They don't seem to nest in them.
Okay.
Good to know.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
After I've got squirrels everywhereand a duck that's laying eggs
(36:59):
next to my pool right now.
You actually mentioned it earlier,you were talking about how much
weight it could hold for some ofthe angles and stuff like that.
Are there any specific trees that aregonna be able to hold more weight?
If someone wanted to put like aswing on it, on the branches or
something, is that even possible
As far as the swing goes?
That would be a custom design process.
That was something we wouldhave to really, we're not really
(37:19):
designed to ha hold the treeis designed to hold it itself.
Yeah.
The tree is actually alreadya pretty decent weight.
Depending on which treewe're talking about.
that big tree I was talking about earlier.
The one that's 18 by 22, that's abouta 1200 pound tree, 1300 pound tree.
as far as it goes, we don't recommendthat's not what they're built for.
Yeah.
People do what they do.
(37:40):
Man,
had to ask, just wondering.
No, it's a good question to ask.
Oh yeah.
No, it's a great question.
Great question.
Thank you.
It's a, the biggest thing is, as faras people with children and stuff
go, young children, we try to alwaysrecommend trees where the branches sit
up high enough off the ground whilethey're still so young that they're
not conscious of what they should orshould not be doing with this thing.
That they're not tall enough to grab 'em.
(38:01):
Yes.
Calvin would make a lotof fun in the Oh, yeah.
how's the wiring covered on the back?
Because now I'm thinking like, okay, whatif my dogs try to dig up at the tree and
dig at the roots and stuff like that?
Are they gonna get into the wiring or no?
So generally speaking, as faras the way it works is, so the
bottom of the tree has a hatch.
just above where it's actually sittingon the, on the ground, there's a
(38:22):
hatch right there with screws in it.
And you can open that up andyou can see the power box, and
we have a little notch in it.
So you can run the wire out andyou can actually have it coming
out of the back of the tree.
Okay.
But what a lot of people will dois before they pour their footer.
To actually put the tree in their yard.
They'll go ahead and run aconduit pipe and that's really
the best way to go about it.
You drop it into PVC, you shouldn'thave to worry about it too much.
(38:43):
Yeah.
Just hardwired in.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's what we would do, so for sure.
Is there anything that we haven't talkedabout that homeowner might want to know?
I think the biggest thing is justto realize that don't look at
the trees in too much of a box.
People think tree, they think tree we'rereally able to foliate your house your
environment in a lot of different ways.
(39:04):
Like I was talking about earlierwith wall trees that sit flat on the
wall and don't take a lot of, floorspace from you, stuff like that.
Corner trees, man.
We've even had people buy thesethings they said we had a, business,
I wanna say it was in over in Illinois.
But it was a event center and theybought these things and they put
in heavy duty rafters and they hungthem upside down from the ceiling.
Wow.
(39:24):
Yeah, it was wild, man.
They've got an upside downforest in there that's.
Yeah.
Crazy stuff, dude.
the biggest thing is we are able to fillyour environment in many different ways.
We have so many models and so manyabilities to create something that
actually flows with your home.
And it doesn't feel like you'rejust trying to stick something
straight trunk into a corner that'snow gonna take up, five, 10 feet
(39:46):
square feet of space from you.
Yeah.
These small lots thatwe're getting into today.
Yeah.
More and more zero lotlines and stuff like this.
I think this would be a reallyspectacular product for those spaces too.
Well, and they're also great becausethey're so low voltage, if you have
a good solar system set up theycan be run on a good solar system.
(40:06):
We had a guy down Atlanta thatis currently designing a charity
housing area for homeless and such.
And, but he's gonna be using thetrees almost like streetlights
in the area and running it green.
Wow.
Way.
Cool.
I can't think of anything else.
I had another
question I just thought of, butdoes anyone not get the trunk?
(40:26):
Because you were talking about thetrees upside down and I'm just thinking
in my head, like there might be peopleout there that want to, I don't know,
stage it somehow because the leavesare like the illuminating part.
So I'm just wondering, has thatever happened where they're
not even buying the trunk?
How would you supportthe leaves, the branches?
Well,
The leaves are a plastic thingthat snaps onto the branch or snaps
(40:47):
onto the bulb that's in the branch.
we do have people buy just branches.
everybody has differentideas on design, right?
We've had people do some stuff thatmaybe, I don't know if I would've
done it that way, but they did itand it turned out looking all right.
They buy the branches and they figureout how they want to set 'em on.
Like they'll put.
Wooden pegs off of a pole they alreadyhave, and then they put in the wiring
(41:08):
and they set 'em on their pole.
So it looks like they foliated their pole.
do vine work.
It's not something wereally advertise a lot of.
It's not a primary thing for us, butif somebody's looking to foliate a wall
so we can, instead of giving you a hardbranch, we can give you a vine branch.
You can be like, okay I want to be ableto cover this wall in vines and we'll give
you you'll get all the regular branches.
(41:29):
Then you'll get a few vine branches.
So on the back of the tree by thewall, you can put on your vine
branches and then you can run yourvines all over the wall and look
like you're foliated the whole wall.
Yeah, that's cool.
That's real cool.
Yeah.
It's also cool how you talkI'm thinking also like just
pressing it against the wall.
Like you don't have tohave the whole trunk.
You could just cut it in half or whatever.
Yeah we have 'em designed,so there are wall trees.
(41:50):
The back of the trunk hasroom for branches on it.
It just sits up against the wall and thenthe branches are only on the front 180.
Thank you for coming on the podcastagain, but we always do closing
questions just to get to knowthe person a little bit better.
I'm wondering what yourfavorite book is, your favorite
movie and your favorite food.
Oh, my favorite dishI've had in a long time.
(42:10):
I lived in Cambodia for three years.
I used to eat dish called ocha.
Which is a fried rice pin noodle sauteedwith onions, and it comes with cru and
bok choy, and then they'll put meatand over easy egg and crushed peanuts
with sweet chili sauce all over it.
It's pretty amazing.
book, oh man I read a lot of philosophy.
I'll say Meditations fromAurelius changed my life.
(42:32):
what was the other question?
favorite movie.
that's a tough one, man.
I always liked the Patriot.
Gibson really killed that part.
Think someone else had that?
Just a couple.
Oh no.
It was the, it was Braveheart.
It was Braveheart.
Bee Gibson has been on.
That's an amazing movie
too.
Yeah, I like all thosehistorical flicks, man.
So if you were to go somewhere forinspiration, where would you go?
Me personally?
(42:52):
Yeah.
Oh man.
Depends on what kind ofinspiration I'm looking for.
If I was looking for tree design,I'd probably go to Southeast Asia.
If I was looking for music,I'd probably go to the doors.
Okay.
Well, again, Brandon, we reallyappreciate your time today and you've
given us some great information.
And look forward to sending somepeople to your website and hope you
(43:12):
know you can help out some homeowners.
Yeah, man.
Thanks for having me on.
I appreciate you guys.
Thank you.
This show is all about helping you becomea better buyer, a better pool owner,
and hopefully you're gonna find someinsights into how to enjoy your pool even
more so how to help your friends, yourfamily, anybody looking to buy a pool in
the future or that want to remodel theirbackyard, add an outdoor fireplace, fire
(43:37):
pit, add an outdoor kitchen area, addsome shade cells, or whatever else it is.
We wanna be that resource for you and, andthat's the end goal here, and we promise.
That there's gonna bea ton of information.
We'll try to go through it, youknow, as relatively quickly, but
also slow so people can understand.
But the intent of the show, thereason Mike and I are doing this
is because we just got a lot inour heads and we wanna share it.
(44:00):
So we hope to see youhere every single week.
Thanks for listening.
I.
Welcome to Luxury Outdoor LivingPodcast with Mike and Trey
Farley of Farley Pool Designs.
For over 40 years, we've helpedhomeowners turn their backyards
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Scape or a resort style oasis.
We design it all.
(00:24):
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(00:45):
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Let's build your paradise together.
(01:17):
Well this is Mike Farley with LuxuryOutdoor Living Podcast sponsored by
Farley Pool Designs, and we have agreat guest today to talk about a
wonderful product that I've lookedat and admired for a number of years.
We have Brandon today with illuminatedTrees and he's going to give us a
lot of information about his product.
(01:37):
Brandon, why don't you start and giveus a little background about you.
Yeah I'm a sales managerof illuminated trees.
I was in the military and stuff like that.
Did a lot of traveling.
I've always been into art.
I ran into Johnny at onepoint he's an artist at heart.
He's been designingthese trees for 20 years.
so we hit it off real well andhe invited me in I've just
been working with him since.
It's an interesting product.
(01:57):
It's a niche for sure.
It started out small andhas grown quite large.
give us a little bit ofhistory about the company.
The way it kicked off Johnnywas always into design.
He was doing lights and allsorts of stuff for a while.
And then he starteddoing those iron trees.
And I don't know if you know,about 20 years ago people were
starting to get into iron trees.
Then you started seeing 'em with liketwinkle lights on 'em and stuff like that.
(02:19):
And it was bringing the outside in.
Has always been a popularthing in design in general.
trees are, such a primal love forus, having that comfort of a tree.
It's food, it's shade,it's sustenance in general.
as he progressed from designingthat, he started having requests
for more and more realistic trees.
Can you make it this way?
Can you make it that way?
So on and so forth.
(02:40):
And we eventually got to where we're atnow, which is a Hyperrealistic product.
The biggest thing about it is the factthat you can't see any of the wiring.
And so when somebody passes by it,whether it's at range or up close,
it's almost surreal as to try to figureout how those lights are in there.
'Cause what we actually do iswe actually use the lights as
(03:00):
the attachment for the leaves.
So you don't reallyactually see the bulbs.
It gives you a really nice, classyshine, we've worked with the Bellagio.
we're in the wind, we're in the Luxor.
we're done most of thecasinos across Vegas.
And we also as you had mentionedbefore, we worked with Westmont.
So we do a lot of interior,exterior, residential design.
And in general, the productsare four season products.
We're a certainly depending on theenvironment, we recommend different styles
(03:22):
of build or different styles of leaf.
We are designed to be able tohandle the weather and we've got 'em
all over the world at this point.
Brandon for someone that's hearingthis for the first time, they don't
know exactly what illuminated tree is.
we've done landscape lightingon this podcast before.
What is a illuminated tree?
Is it, rope lighting?
Is it actual, the leaves are lit up?
the trunk, is it lit up at all?
(03:42):
Is is this something you add toa tree or is it completely like a
synthetic tree like you're describing?
Can you just elaborate forsomeone that might have no
idea what we're talking about?
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, just from base build of theproduct, what we do is we create
a design, any style of tree.
We've got thousands ofdesigns of tree at this point.
But it's a steel frame, and thenit's wrapped in a resin wrap.
(04:04):
so basically it's hand sculptedinto whatever model or form that
we've created that trying toreach with this particular tree.
Once it's built and it's solidified,we cut and modularize it.
They're easier to put together than Legos.
It's really just a tongue and groovekind of slide in thing once you get it.
But, the trunk comes in two forms.
You can even get the straight resin.
So for like very cold environments,I've sold a lot of trees up in Canada.
(04:26):
And we offer two trunks.
We have our, resin, which is ournatural brown trunk, and then we have a
hyperrealistic trunk, which actually ismade from a hand sculpted fiberglass.
And what we found is in extremelycold temperatures that stuff
tends to crack real hard.
Fiberglass doesn't reallydo too well at negative 30.
Wow.
But not much does
No, me either.
it's fully synthetic.
(04:46):
So yeah, it's steel resin, fiberglass.
And then we have a wiring harnessthat runs up through the tree.
first of all, the bottom ofthe tree comes with a bolt.
Pattern.
and every tree comeswith zinc anchor bolts.
And people will do lotsof things with 'em.
Like some people will want todrop 'em straight into their slab.
Other people like the idea ofbeing able to move the tree around.
They'll do things like buy large treeplanters and pour 'em half full of
(05:07):
concrete and drop the tree down in there.
Then they can move it around on a dolly.
But the power actually set up.
We have a hatch on the back of thetree, so you can route it outta the
back of the tree, or you can dropit straight down through, and it
makes it very hard to see the wiring.
In general.
Everything runs straightup through the tree.
most people have dealt with syntheticChristmas trees at this point.
you have to fluff those branchesand do a good job of making
it very natural looking.
(05:28):
And that's one of thebiggest things with our tree.
Leaves generally grow towards the sun.
Kind of give it, like a 3D pullout effect.
It just takes a little time to makethem look real natural for you.
But once you get 'em there, theleaves actually attach to the lights.
You don't really see the bulbs.
'cause the lights actually are wiredall the way down into the tree.
It's a hundred percenta standalone product.
Wow.
Yeah, they're gorgeous.
I'm looking at photos right nowI wasn't sure if how the lights
(05:50):
on the individual leaves worked.
'cause it looks like everysingle leaf is lit up.
It's insane.
Well actually the way that works iswe've got LEDs it's a low voltage system.
Even our large trees are generallyusing less than a couple hundred watts.
But the leaf is that we've got it.
I mean, Obviously it's justsoldered into those little branches.
And then what we do is dependingon the environment, we'll actually.
(06:11):
Permanently attach, with adhesive,put the leaves over those lights
they clip on, and we attach thoseleaves so you don't actually see
the bulb, in a really overt way.
And it allows that kind of natural look.
And one of the other cool things is alot of LED products don't dim very well.
They tend to flicker,when you try to dim them.
our RGBW lights do tend to flicker.
(06:31):
There's a problem with RG bws,it's a difficult thing to solve.
But our warm white lights are actuallyset up on a resistor so that we can dim
those all the way down to three, 4%.
It allows us to be very ambientin an environment instead of
being the absolute focal point.
It's a very relaxing thingto have in an environment.
I'm sure you can see some of thosepictures where we have 'em in high-end
restaurants and stuff like that.
Most of their most requestedtables are all under the trees.
(06:53):
Just to clarify, you mentioned extremecold minus 30 below, so it can work
in really hot temperatures outsideas well as cold temperatures outside.
Yeah, absolutely.
So we have trees all over the place.
Arizona is one of the premier spotsthat we've had to work to make sure
our product can withstand, even withArizona, there's still gonna be certain
(07:14):
leaves and certain styles of tree thatI would recommend or not recommend
based on the extreme conditions there.
the light bulbs themselves willhandle down to about negative
I wanna say negative 30.
And we'll get up to about one50 with as far as heat goes.
And they are rated at a hundredthousand plus hours, like the
trees we have in the Luxor Hotel.
I don't think they've beenturned off in 10 years.
(07:34):
Okay.
Wow.
So size of these, I've seen somethat, they're like 10 feet tall.
They're in a backyardsetting type situation.
So is there a certain size asin small or a certain size as in
large that you stop and start at?
we, build trees in the range of twoand a half, up to about 33 feet.
(07:56):
We've made some monsters.
We've done some really wild stuff.
we filled out the Oscars one year.
We did the Oscar dinner.
We did a Arkansas Governor's inauguration.
We do a lot of EDMfestivals, things like that.
And, depending on the environment,people want an array of trees.
Like one of the things that we do atshows that really sets us apart, like
we get Best Booth pretty regularlybecause, we do is we create a forest
(08:18):
and the more these trees you have in aspot, the more enchanting it becomes.
It really takes you away.
It's overwhelming because you're not usedto this, having this level of aesthetic
with no wiring and stuff like that.
As far as sizing goes, though we domake a really wide range of trees.
You can range, again, and somebodycould call me and say, okay,
look, I've had, actually, I hada customer a little while back.
They were like, they sent me a picture ofthe spiral staircase and it was beautiful.
(08:39):
you know, it was maybe Four foothole up the center of the staircase,
and they wanted it to come allthe way up through and then.
Canopy above it at the topof the staircase and give
you this canopy coming over.
And it was beautiful.
And we can do lots of customwork like that if people give us
dimensions and stuff like that.
We have wall trees thatare flat on one side.
They're really great for creatinghedges and stuff like that.
(09:01):
People will stack 'em together and witha broad leaf, they do a good job of doing
things like buffering down sound andstuff like that in a room that echoes.
We also make 90 degree trees thatkind of come up in a corner and then.
Canopy pushes out into the room,but you're not losing all that
floor space, having it pushed outoff the corner, things like that.
Awesome.
So how does a, design processgo if someone calls, walk
(09:23):
us through how that, works.
So either myself or Johnny.
We'll, talk to customer, we'llask for photos and such like that.
Kind of Ask what kind offeel they're going for.
Like for a high-end restaurant, theygenerally want to go with just the warm
white lighting because it gives a classiereffect, it allows them to dim and such,
whereas we work with a lot of familyhomes and even event centers and stuff
(09:43):
like that, they wanna be able to theme.
So they'll go with color changing lights.
But generally speaking, once you.
Have contacted us.
Johnny does most all the design still.
But we will sit down and justtake a look at it, get the
dimensions it's pretty simple.
Tell us, show us a picture, give us themeasurements, tell us what it is you want
it to do, and we will get it done for you.
(10:05):
How customiz are these?
is there's like certain templatesbecause it looks like they have
multiple types of trees and so I'mguessing like the leaves and the
actual trees are customizable, right?
Well, yeah.
So the way our order process reallyworks is we figure out the model of
tree you're gonna be on, what size,what shape, all that fun stuff.
And then we choose the style oflighting, and then we choose the leaf.
(10:26):
And we have about 60 differentvariations of leaf right now.
if somebody's looking for a specificthing, like we had a customer a little
while back, we have post oak, liveoak, and then we have those in not
only the natural oak, but we alsohave those in like autumn colors.
Well, this person wanted a purple oak,so we just, it's a little bit extra cost.
So we, but we created a purple leaf.
We had somebody a while back ask us,I can't even remember the name of the
(10:48):
leaf now, but basically we had to opena new mold for them and in that case,
it could cost a couple of an extracouple thousand dollars for us to
have to open a new mold and create acompletely new style of leaf for you.
But that's again, not somethingthat's outside our range.
We don't generally say no to alot, and I think that's one of the
reasons we have such a large catalog.
We do have a list.
Of trees that are standard buildsfor us, but really I'd say custom
(11:12):
to standard is kind of 50 50 for us.
Okay.
So I noticed a list of trees andI was surprised 'cause you had
everything from olives to palmsto, pines and Japanese maple.
Japanese maple marijuana.
Yeah, that was an interesting one.
So that could be an interesting tree.
how does it perform atnight versus during the day?
(11:33):
Do they keep 'em lit 24 7 or is itsomething like, they look so good, you
just turn off the lights during the day?
Or how does that typically go?
I mean, It depends on thecustomer or a lot of people.
it depends on how you look at LEDs.
Some people look at'em like diesel trucks.
They're better just leave 'em on, yeah.
But most people I think,put 'em on timers.
As far as people that aredoing real installs for their
yard or something like that.
(11:54):
But during the day you turn those lightsoff, it just looks like a natural tree,
especially if you got a real natural leaf.
And one of the other things that we alwayslike to tell people is, when ordering
one of our trees, it's not necessarilyjust a one aesthetic forever thing.
If you wanna order an extra set of litbranches with different leaves on them
so you can change seasons or whatever itis you're looking to do, you can do that.
(12:15):
Oh, wow.
Oh, sweet.
Oh.
That never crossed my mind.
Uh, Yeah, so like you have an aspen,so you can have an Aspen that's in
the fall and yellow leaves, or youcould have an aspen that's green.
So that's really cool.
weeping, I think would look really cool.
Do you do many weeping styletrees like a weeping willow?
Yeah, they got that.
We do absolutely have weeping willows.
it's a large number of lights for sure.
(12:37):
Yeah.
We don't necessarily recommend the weepingwillow for outdoor use in places with
any kind of high wind because the biggestdifference, obviously, between our weeping
willow and a real weeping willow isthat a real weeping willow doesn't have
wires that could tangle with each other.
the way our leaves and everythingon there, there's, sticking out
off of that branch that's hangingand they can get hung up on each
other and it can look a little odd.
(12:59):
But we do make weeping willows.
We make them in all sizes.
In fact we showed a monster lastyear about a 20 footer at transworld
Christmas show in St. Louis.
they're really beautiful andyou can get 'em in any leaf.
It's, we have standardweeping willow leaves.
We have green, we have clearweeping willow leaves, we can
put jasmine flowers on it.
We can put oak leaves on it.
We can put a lot of people, whatthey like to buy is white leaves.
(13:20):
Like we have white maple,white ginkgo white jasmine.
And the reason they like the whitewith the RGBW color lighting is
because since the white leaves lacktheir own pigment, then whatever color
you choose, they fully saturate andget the whole tree glows that color.
That's cool.
It
also gives a cool aestheticduring the day probably too.
'cause you have the lightsoff, it's a white leaf.
You don't see that in, in nature.
(13:41):
Yeah.
It's a stark contrast tomost people's environments.
it definitely standsout really beautifully.
Because it's an LED light, then wedon't have a issue with it in proximity
to the swimming pool with water in it.
No, not at all.
I mean, we, filled out, we'vedone a lot of swimming pool
design and stuff like that.
Like we actually work with some swimmingpool building companies that use us
(14:02):
to kind of decorate around the edges.
And, some people will want to go withpalm trees, we do make palm trees we
make 'em quite large all the way up tolike 18 feet straight or curved trunk.
a lot of people actually, theydon't want the palm trees.
They want the large trees withlarge canopies, and it creates
shade around their pools.
We are gonna take a break here for asecond and get into outdoor living.
(14:23):
So with outdoor living, we like togo to barbecue bits here we're gonna
share some information of everythingthat you may want to consider in
your outdoor living space as far asfeatures, especially for the kitchen.
Hope you enjoy this.
I get one complaintabout the big green egg.
Mm-hmm.
It takes too long to get going.
(14:44):
Right.
Okay.
I'm a patient individual.
I usually tell people, listen,go light your green egg.
Go prep your food.
Sure.
By the time you prep your food, sure.
Your egg, a lot of times willbe ready to use right now.
The challenge is that is,oh, it's just steak night.
Right.
And I needed it at 700 degrees.
Right.
Well, that takes a little bitwhile to get going, right?
(15:05):
So there's a solution, correct?
There is a solution.
Okay.
Please explain.
And this makes it ease of use.
So this is a, um, this is aelectric lighting solution.
It's made by a loof lighter.
What it is, you can imagine being justa hot hair dryer and how this works.
It's got a 12 foot cord.
Doesn't take, uh, doesn'tpull a lot of amperages.
You don't throw breakers.
(15:25):
As you can see, the element screennose on the end, it gets extremely hot.
So when I fill my charcoal up intothis grill, at first what I'll do
is I'll put the nose of this ontothe charcoal and then hit the start
button within about 12 to 15 seconds.
Once you see it spark, then youback it off a couple of inches.
Keep keep it held downand what will happen.
(15:47):
And within 90 seconds you'll getthis grill up to 500 5600 degrees.
90
seconds.
90 seconds.
Yeah, just hold it on there.
Now some people will do two areas,but I'll go in the center point on
any grill, and when it starts toilluminate and get really red in
your charcoal, then I'll be done.
I'll take it away, and then however,I'm gonna cook more than likely.
(16:07):
If I want it quick, I'mgonna go direct grilling.
So I'll put the cookinggrid back on right.
Then I'll shut my egg in.
Don't never, never leave your egg open.
Always shut it down and let theheat absorb into the ceramic
itself and open up your air.
Open up your air channels.
Then it gives you a nice controlpoint, but it lights very, very quick.
As of breakaway starters, sometimesyou light 'em, sometimes they don't.
(16:29):
They smoke.
You have to fight through all that.
With this, it's really clean, ease of use.
Quick lighting solution.
It should be in everyone's arsenalif they have a ceramic grill.
So
I'm doing ribs.
The big challenge with thatis for me to get clear smoke.
That's correct.
Okay.
So I want my clear smokeversus my billowing.
That's correct.
Gray stuff.
So it help me get that quicker as well.
(16:50):
It'll help you get there quicker.
And also, um, you don't haveto fight through all that.
Once you light your charcoal, then Ican set my chunks in there and like
you said, go in and prep my ribs.
Then get to my blue smokeinstead of getting outta my
white to my blue smoke mode.
Okay.
Where it's the most penetrating smoke.
But you probably wouldn't run itfor 90 seconds to get, you would.
You would, and then use this as
a control point.
(17:11):
All you'll have to do, I've gotit wide open on direct drilling.
All you have to do is leave a third of thespace open and it'll deprive it of air.
Meet that
and hold.
Yeah.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Wow.
Great.
Christmas present.
Great.
Christmas present.
Okay.
Well thank you very much.
Yeah.
So I hope you enjoyed the barbecuebits that we just featured today, and
we'll have more coming up next week.
If there's something in particular thatyou're interested for, let us know and
(17:35):
we'll get back into the episode now.
So if you were going to recommendsomething to a homeowner that they
wouldn't think about what wouldbe the tip you would give 'em?
Hey, make sure you do this.
This would be really cool, especiallyfor a residential situation.
Any particular tip?
I think that as far as our treesgo, this is a very subtle product.
(17:56):
And if you're just looking to createan essence of magic in the home, that
is not something that is just gonnajump out at everybody immediately.
It's a really greatproduct in that aspect.
Like we've done somereally beautiful stuff.
Like for example, because we cango so custom with our canopies.
We've had people order.
Trees for their living room whereit comes out of the corner and then
(18:17):
stretches across their living room.
And then at night when they sitdown, they flick it on, and they dim
down the tree and they're sittingunder this beautiful tree while they
watch, a movie with their family.
So there's really a lot of waysto let's face it, it's a frivolous
product as far as it goes, but it'sa magical product and it really
creates a lot of feeling in your home.
Well, it's an interesting thing too,because My background is I have a
(18:37):
degree in landscape architecture, andI've been doing this for 40 years, but
in the last five years I've had a lotof people that are like, I'm really
into low maintenance and I reallydon't like plants, but I want you to
create something that looks natural.
So the turf started this whole situation.
We do all this natural.
(18:58):
I mean we do synthetic turf in backyardsand people are like, I really like that.
And so then we started doing syntheticboxwood for screening and fencing and you
know, I got a project right now we've got300 feet of, synthetic boxwood hedges.
That are all incorporated oversteel frames and stuff like that.
But, people are like, I don'twant plants 'cause they die.
(19:20):
And so I want somethingthat's gonna look really cool.
So this takes it to another level.
This takes it, I. To, I can now have,trees to go along with my box with hedges.
then the bonus of all bonusesis lighting is a huge thing and
becoming more and more important.
And now we can light this at night.
Yeah.
Which is amazing.
(19:40):
And it's magical too like youwas saying, those things are
replicating actual nature.
This is something that isn't possiblein nature and that's so cool.
'cause like I play, this isjust a little side tangent.
I play a lot of video games and a lotof the really good looking video games
that are being successful now are tappinginto environments that glow like this,
like Elden ring and stuff like that.
(20:00):
Which is.
It's surreal that, that's actuallypossible with your product.
Well, not to cut you off, but forme, like when I first got into these
trees, it reminded me of like theavatar environment and stuff like that.
It's that kind of stuff.
Absolutely.
you're right.
A hundred percent popular inthe movement as far as design
and which way we're going.
But as far as maintenance goeson the trees if you put this tree
indoors, man, Unless maybe after 10,15 years the power box or something
(20:25):
burns out or something like that andyou can just get a new one from us.
We warranty 'em for three years,structurally, electronically.
But if you ever have a light go out oranything like that, you send it to us.
If we can fix it, we will.
If we can't, we'll replace it.
But indoors very little to no maintenance.
You can dust it, you can blow it off.
Pneumatic hose, whatever itis you want to do outdoors.
The way we tell peopleto install them outdoors.
(20:47):
And as long as they do it correctly,it's pretty low maintenance.
We just have them silicone, all thejoints and where all the branches
connect and stuff like that.
And then, obviously, we can't, I.Stop the sun from doing what it does.
But we have noticed, at least with ourtrunk, that the patina is not unnatural.
The leaves themselves, depending onwhat environment you're in, obviously
your leaves are gonna last longer inIllinois than they are gonna in Arizona.
(21:12):
and we sell the leaves at cost.
they're not expensive.
You know, they're all lessthan a dollar a piece.
depending on how many leaves, But asfar as it goes high sun environments
and stuff like that, we're gonnarecommend certain leaves and generally
you're gonna get four to six years.
Before you really have to dotoo much worrying about that.
And then again, if you have a broadleaf, most of the leaves, they're
gonna have any effect from the sunare only gonna be on the outside.
(21:34):
You're probably not gonna have toreplace all of them because a lot
of 'em are catching their own shade.
as far as maintenancegoes, that's about it.
If it's outside and you sealit up properly, when it gets
dirty, just spray it off.
And in a snowy environment, justyou know, in Colorado they're taught
out there not to let your deck fillup with three to five feet of snow.
If you wake up in the morning andit's snowing real heavy, make sure
you're going out there shakingoff your tree every now and then.
(21:54):
'cause you don't want 300pounds of snow on your tree.
Yeah.
Are they using broad leaves becauseof the reason you said, or is there
other reasons, like maybe materialsfor the leaves that they would
use 'cause maybe they're more UVresistant or something like that?
All of our EV leaves are UV coated.
As far as broad versus narrow to methat's a purely aesthetic choice.
Okay.
when you get the broad leaves, youget that real big bushy canopy that
(22:17):
you can't see any light through.
Whereas if you were to go withsomething like an aspen, a very small
narrow leaf, you would definitelyget a lot more air in your canopy.
Oh yeah.
So does the white leaf.
Hold up better becausethere's no color to it.
It's not gonna fade.
The white leaf actually does pretty well.
we've had some trial and error definitely.
you know, Let's build itthis way and stick it out in
(22:38):
Arizona and see how it goes.
I'm sorry.
That was an experiment.
Let's do it this way now.
But we've gotten pretty good at it.
The, some environments, like I said,are pretty extreme, but the white
leaves do very well in general, and,the biggest thing is like when you're
changing colors, our RGBW setupoffers you, I wanna say it's nine
or 12 colors including one of thosecolors being the multicolor Christmas.
(22:59):
So you just push the button, you gotChristmas lights then they also have
animation so they'll twinkle and chaseand fade and all that fun stuff too.
And we've actually just this yearstarted designing addressable trees.
Okay.
I was gonna ask you later ifanyone uses these for Christmas
trees, but there you go.
Yeah, absolutely.
I've used one for a Christmas tree.
I had one in my, I was like,kids, let's get a Christmas tree.
They're like, we kind of have a tree.
(23:20):
I was like, all right.
so installation.
Do you install these, if someonein North Texas ordered a tree or
is it getting shipped to 'em and weassemble it here, how does that work?
as far as it goes, as I mentionedearlier, they're easier than Legos.
There's really not that much to it.
It's a tongue and groove setup.
(23:40):
All the branches come with correspondingnumbers on 'em, and it's just a set screw
to set 'em in place for the most part.
If they're under if they're 14 feet orless, we generally say, put together
yourself or grab you a handyman,it's gonna cost you a lot less.
Because anybody that's semi capablecan definitely put these together.
But for the bigger trees andfor larger products where
it's a large number of trees.
(24:01):
definitely in California 'causethat's where we're based.
We go out of our way to helpsome of our large customers.
'cause we've had some customers, theyorder, 1220 foot trees we're gonna
be on site to make sure that's beingdone properly and being done safely.
But.
At the same time it's quite costly,so it's definitely a whole thing
to get us to come out and do aninstall on most of these trees.
Generally speaking, customers figureout how to handle it on their own.
(24:24):
How big a shippingcontainer does it come in?
Is it in a cardboard boxor What's it come in?
Yeah, so the way we do it we havea couple different size, but for
our larger trees, it's like oneof those thin, plywood boxes.
but for most of our trees, up to about13 feet it's gonna be a cardboard box
wrapped in a flat steel welded cage.
depending on the size tree,obviously it's gonna be different.
(24:46):
But like for example, one of our smallerreal popular trees is our 200 model.
That's about six and a half,seven feet when it's fully built.
And that comes in a box that'sactually shippable by UPS.
I wanna say that's no more than threeand a half, four feet long, one by one.
And.
Then you start steppinginto like our 10 foot trees.
Some of those boxes can be, six feet long.
But again, I can put four10 foot trees on a pallet.
(25:08):
So shipping them's not as badas you would think it'd be.
Gotcha.
So cost of a tree, know they'reprobably all individual because they're
customized and everything, but can yougive us a rough idea of what trees cost?
let's say you're looking at, that 200model at six, seven foot, that's a
fairly popular tree as far as they go.
(25:29):
That one's gonna start out when warm whitelights right around that $2,100 range.
And if you wanted to upgrade tothe RGBW lights, we do that at cost
as an upgrade, but that's for thatparticular tree, it's about $200.
Then, we start stepping up to like ourmarquee 10 foot tree, our 300 model.
We're starting to step into that35, 3700 range, depending on
(25:49):
what you're choosing as lights.
and again, like sometimes we'll lookat a 12 foot tree that's gonna cost
less than my 10 foot tree because thelights themselves are 65% of the cost.
And if the canopy on that smalltree is not that large then
it's gonna use less lights.
Makes sense.
You start my 14 foot model, my four40 is a marquee tree for us, for sure.
We sell lots of it.
(26:10):
I wanna say we're up there inthat 9,000 range, 9,500 depending
on, but it's got a lot of lights.
Now you're looking at like 2,700 lightson that, we're paying people to sit
around and solder, 2,700 lights on.
Yeah.
That's a process, no doubt.
Yes, sir.
what's the most expensive tree y'all have?
Like the biggest, most lights?
we've made some real monsters.
(26:31):
We actually put one on top of a bar calledthe Ava Bar in Nashville while back.
It was 20 feet tall and 20feet wide in the canopy.
Oh, wow.
I don't remember the exact numberof that lights on them, but it
was in the tens of thousands.
Okay.
I wanna say that tree.
I don't remember the actual calls.
I could tell you this.
When we started stepping into customtrees, like my AI custom tree we started
playing with AI a little while back ondesigns cause we were trying to build
(26:52):
a Halloween tree, something that wasspooky looking we designed a couple
different things, but we got one, it's18 feet tall, 22 feet wide, and that tree
wholesale, and we are the manufacturer,if you come straight to us, we're gonna
sell it to you at a wholesale, price.
That was about a 25, 20 $6,000 tree.
Okay.
Wow.
But we have made trees up, a hundredthousand dollars trees for sure.
Yeah.
The biggest difference betweenus and a lot of trees, and a
(27:13):
lot of people get it mixed up.
They start looking at theysee some of these really.
Like the Burning Man tree.
I don't know if you've ever seen theBurning Man tree or anything like that,
but these massive sculpted trees, whatthose are is actually sculpted in place.
They're usually done with like plasteror concrete or something like that.
And you have artisans on sitebuilding this tree that the only way
to move it really is to destroy it.
(27:34):
And that's the biggest differencebetween us, you can really, take it to
bar, put it together, stuff like that.
Which is a critical thingto get it in your backyard.
Yeah, for sure, man.
Yeah, for sure.
how energy efficient are these?
it's all set up on a low voltage system.
Most of our trees, like even my 10footer, I wanna say you're using.
Maybe a hundred watts.
(27:55):
It might, even on some of my big,like 14, 15, 16 foot trees, we're
still gonna be under 200 watts.
We're really not gonna be usingenough power to see much of an
effect on your electricity bill.
Unless you've just got apile of trees out there.
Okay.
And it is a standard one 10 outlet.
and I don't know how broad your audiencegets, but we do trees in Europe.
We can set 'em up two 20,all that fun stuff as well.
(28:15):
People hardwire 'em into to theirsystem so they can put 'em up on their
automatic dimmers and all that fun stuff.
So we're definitely able to be integrated.
Okay.
For sure.
So what's the farthest you've sent a tree?
Oh man.
Well, we've got trees like justlast month we sent one to Belgium.
it's a museum and they'resetting it up in there.
(28:36):
it's gonna be really beautiful actually.
We've got some trees down in SouthAmerica Brazil, Argentina I know
we've got a few more across Europe.
I can't really put myfinger on 'em right now.
We've got a, Quite a few ofthem up in Canada as well.
We don't really sell any of 'em in Asia,but they can build 'em their selves.
that's how it goes over there.
You said you're the sales manager,so like you're seeing a bunch of
people come in and ask you questionsand trying to wrap their head
(28:58):
around maybe making this purchase.
So what do you think is the most commonreason homeowners actually go ahead
and pursue getting an illuminated tree?
I think the biggest thing about theilluminated tree as far as actually
making the decision to pull thetrigger it is just understanding
that more than anything, this is nota two year lighting solar product
that you're gonna be throwing away.
(29:19):
this is a piece of art.
It's built out of hardy materials.
It's gonna last you as longas you take care of it, at
least a couple of the decades.
this is most certainly ahigh-end aesthetic for your home.
and it's absolutely a talking point.
We even have people in Airbnbs and stufflike that tell us that you know, it added
value to the environment in general,and they get a lot of compliments on it.
So the biggest thing about this is,I can't possibly say that it's an
(29:42):
absolute need for anybody, but ifwhat you're looking for is creating
feeling and having art in your home.
That's really people's biggestreason for jumping on these things
because they're just looking fora feeling in their environment.
Oh, I heard the word enchantedused in one of the things that you
said earlier, and it seems like itwould create a really cool feeling.
(30:04):
would bet that this issomething that's also.
Would be popular to use in kids' bedrooms?
Yeah.
I can see my grandkids digging thisbig time as a really cool nightlight.
Oh yeah.
No, absolutely dude.
We do.
I have, people ask me all thetime and they say what's the
most normal use for these?
Who's your customer base?
And to be honest, there'snot an answer to that.
(30:25):
'cause it's so broad.
We've got trees and.
In event centers.
We've got trees and hospitals, museums,residences children's bedrooms.
Absolutely.
We've done more than a few of those.
We've got a pile of trees over atthe St. Louis botanical gardens.
So even the botanical gardens, theyuse 'em to light their walkways
and stuff when they're doing shows.
(30:45):
It's a special hybrid.
It's called the luminous variety.
Yeah.
Well, the thing is they're justhyper realist enough, they're just
realistic enough looking to pull it off.
Yeah.
So that's really our biggest thing.
We're always trying to keep theaesthetic at a level where your
company might walk by and just notrealize that's not a real tree.
do y'all do like fruittrees or apple trees?
(31:06):
'cause I was wondering like, doy'all have like apples that go along
with the leaves and stuff like that?
Or is that like moreof a custom type deal?
We have done that.
It's not really requested that much.
We have an apple leaf if we needed toattach, synthetic fruits to it, that's not
something that's out of our wheelhouse.
Some people even do it theirselves.
A lot of people decoratethese on the backside.
(31:27):
But we do that for sure.
If it's needed.
We've done some interesting stuff likeorb, trees and stuff like that where
we've gotta just pick plastic balls on'em going multicolor all over the place.
we also do a lot of flowers.
So we have clustered flowers,like Jasmine, and we do that in
purple, green, blue, red, white.
But those are silk based and we generallyonly recommend them for indoor use.
Okay.
So do you have a showroom that peoplein California come to see all this?
(31:51):
Or is it mainly just through your website?
we had a showroom just a little while backand we actually just moved facilities.
So we haven't set up our new showroom yet.
But will be happening here at some point.
We do have a showroom atthe Amerimart in Atlanta.
Which I don't know if you guysever discussed that, but it's
a huge indoor outdoor design,like commercial sales place.
so we go to that showroomevery now and then.
(32:12):
You can come in there and see our trees.
We actually have a bar inthere and stuff like that.
We'll give you a drinkwhile you look at 'em.
But, no, not currently in California.
We do shows so like we go to theLas Vegas bar and restaurant show.
We do I apa, which is theInternational Amusement Park Show.
We've done the national restaurantshows and stuff like that as well.
That's a lot of the way we get ourtrees out there because the thing
(32:33):
of it is, I could send you a pictureof a 30 foot tree, but you're never
gonna feel the magnitude of it.
Whereas if you just walk into my boothat a show and all of a sudden you're
surrounded by trees that are, two to 15feet tall, it's not that people aren't
smart or anything, it's just that theimagination it takes to like, take this
two and a half foot tree, I'm showing youand realize that at 14 feet that's a lot.
(32:54):
So if someone came to you in thedesign processes, do you have
Hey, I'm in Dallas-Fort Worth.
you have a restaurantthat's got a tree in Dallas?
Would you be able to referus to someone like that?
Yeah.
I mean, If you were to tell uswhat city you were in, we could
certainly look up the people we'vesold to and public business wise.
And we could let you know, likewhat restaurant or something to go
(33:16):
to, to be able to see one for sure.
This year we got I can't remember the nameof the restaurant off the top of my head.
I feel bad about it.
He did a wonderful job.
He put us on TikTok and, we got,I wanna say a couple million hit.
We were overwhelmed.
We were overwhelmed with thephone calls coming off of that.
Most people, I think it's a productthat you see in things like the
Bellagio or something like that.
You don't think that it'spossible to get your hands on it.
(33:38):
But we're very accessible.
And that's what our podcast is allabout, is finding things like you
that are really awesome that peoplejust don't know how to define.
In fact, at this pointhow would they reach you?
What's the best way to reach out to you?
best way to reach us is to go toilluminated trees.com to be real honest,
we are redesigning that website becausewe now have over 11,000 SKUs and it's
(34:02):
just difficult to figure out how tolike, incorporate that into a website.
But you can go there we have a chat boxand that comes directly to our sales team.
we're more than happy to deal withyou directly and we'll give you a
call, whatever it is you wanna do.
Okay.
I'm wondering like, I don't know exactlyhow long in the process you're selling
this product and checking up on itlater or anything like that, but have
(34:25):
you heard, or, from any installersor anything like just nightmares and
stuff, like people should be aware of?
It's like, Hey, don't do this.
This is probably a bad idea.
And maybe it seems like it'sobvious, but to someone out there
that's listening, it might not be
no, absolutely.
I think all companies, anybody thatdesigns any kind of real products,
especially when it comes to outdoorthings goes through trial and error.
(34:47):
We've most certainly experienced, likefor example, when we first started
stepping into really snowy environmentsthere's certain trees with branches at
certain angles that don't seem to handlethe snow as well as other trees, we had
an experience one time where we sold abunch of a model of a tree to a guy and
he got a ton of snow and it broke offsome branches off a few of those trees.
So we had to replaceall that which we did.
(35:09):
It's just a lesson in What we need topay attention to as far as it goes.
we had some issues early on with powerboxes burning out because trees were
sitting out being left on in Arizona heat.
So we had to start looking at differentpower boxes and stuff like that to try
to accommodate that sort of environment.
One of the biggest things thatpeople ask about in the south is hail.
(35:29):
And the biggest thing for me isif you really wanna look at this
product and what it is, this isart more than it is anything.
I recommend insuring it, assuch, it is a high value item.
And I grew up in Texas.
I know all about hail for sure.
And there's sometimesthere's nothing you can do.
Yeah.
You start dropping baseball size hailon something like this, I'm sorry.
(35:52):
It beats, that beats everything up, man.
It's not gonna withstand a tornado.
Yeah.
We, yeah.
Well, I don't know.
Maybe a little one.
Also the other place that really hasextreme condition is the Great Lakes.
they get that ice effect whereyou get that heavy ice that blows
across everything, all that mistblows across and becomes that smooth
ice, thick ice over everything.
So in those cases, I just tell thosepeople, I'm like, to be honest,
(36:15):
you really need to like, take yourtrees down during the winter so you
don't deal with any ice breakage.
Yeah.
Has any, your trees beenstruck by lightning?
Not off the top of my head.
Okay.
No.
oh, one more thing that most people don'task that, but we have absolutely gotten
feedback on is the squirrels hate 'em.
Oh, squirrels hate 'em.
So they're, that's a good thing.
Squirrels hate them.
They're
mess.
(36:35):
They are not gonna mess up your tree.
They don't like it because theycan't dig their claws into 'em.
It's a hard substance.
Maybe they don't like the way itsmells or maybe they don't like
that there's an energy runningthrough it or something like that.
But they just don't like it.
And the birds don't seem tomess with 'em too much either.
No more than sitting on 'em for a second.
They don't seem to nest in them.
Okay.
Good to know.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
After I've got squirrels everywhereand a duck that's laying eggs
(36:59):
next to my pool right now.
You actually mentioned it earlier,you were talking about how much
weight it could hold for some ofthe angles and stuff like that.
Are there any specific trees that aregonna be able to hold more weight?
If someone wanted to put like aswing on it, on the branches or
something, is that even possible
As far as the swing goes?
That would be a custom design process.
That was something we wouldhave to really, we're not really
(37:19):
designed to ha hold the treeis designed to hold it itself.
Yeah.
The tree is actually alreadya pretty decent weight.
Depending on which treewe're talking about.
that big tree I was talking about earlier.
The one that's 18 by 22, that's abouta 1200 pound tree, 1300 pound tree.
as far as it goes, we don't recommendthat's not what they're built for.
Yeah.
People do what they do.
(37:40):
Man,
had to ask, just wondering.
No, it's a good question to ask.
Oh yeah.
No, it's a great question.
Great question.
Thank you.
It's a, the biggest thing is, as faras people with children and stuff
go, young children, we try to alwaysrecommend trees where the branches sit
up high enough off the ground whilethey're still so young that they're
not conscious of what they should orshould not be doing with this thing.
That they're not tall enough to grab 'em.
(38:01):
Yes.
Calvin would make a lotof fun in the Oh, yeah.
how's the wiring covered on the back?
Because now I'm thinking like, okay, whatif my dogs try to dig up at the tree and
dig at the roots and stuff like that?
Are they gonna get into the wiring or no?
So generally speaking, as faras the way it works is, so the
bottom of the tree has a hatch.
just above where it's actually sittingon the, on the ground, there's a
(38:22):
hatch right there with screws in it.
And you can open that up andyou can see the power box, and
we have a little notch in it.
So you can run the wire out andyou can actually have it coming
out of the back of the tree.
Okay.
But what a lot of people will dois before they pour their footer.
To actually put the tree in their yard.
They'll go ahead and run aconduit pipe and that's really
the best way to go about it.
You drop it into PVC, you shouldn'thave to worry about it too much.
(38:43):
Yeah.
Just hardwired in.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's what we would do, so for sure.
Is there anything that we haven't talkedabout that homeowner might want to know?
I think the biggest thing is justto realize that don't look at
the trees in too much of a box.
People think tree, they think tree we'rereally able to foliate your house your
environment in a lot of different ways.
(39:04):
Like I was talking about earlierwith wall trees that sit flat on the
wall and don't take a lot of, floorspace from you, stuff like that.
Corner trees, man.
We've even had people buy thesethings they said we had a, business,
I wanna say it was in over in Illinois.
But it was a event center and theybought these things and they put
in heavy duty rafters and they hungthem upside down from the ceiling.
Wow.
(39:24):
Yeah, it was wild, man.
They've got an upside downforest in there that's.
Yeah.
Crazy stuff, dude.
the biggest thing is we are able to fillyour environment in many different ways.
We have so many models and so manyabilities to create something that
actually flows with your home.
And it doesn't feel like you'rejust trying to stick something
straight trunk into a corner that'snow gonna take up, five, 10 feet
(39:46):
square feet of space from you.
Yeah.
These small lots thatwe're getting into today.
Yeah.
More and more zero lotlines and stuff like this.
I think this would be a reallyspectacular product for those spaces too.
Well, and they're also great becausethey're so low voltage, if you have
a good solar system set up theycan be run on a good solar system.
(40:06):
We had a guy down Atlanta thatis currently designing a charity
housing area for homeless and such.
And, but he's gonna be using thetrees almost like streetlights
in the area and running it green.
Wow.
Way.
Cool.
I can't think of anything else.
I had another
question I just thought of, butdoes anyone not get the trunk?
(40:26):
Because you were talking about thetrees upside down and I'm just thinking
in my head, like there might be peopleout there that want to, I don't know,
stage it somehow because the leavesare like the illuminating part.
So I'm just wondering, has thatever happened where they're
not even buying the trunk?
How would you supportthe leaves, the branches?
Well,
The leaves are a plastic thingthat snaps onto the branch or snaps
(40:47):
onto the bulb that's in the branch.
we do have people buy just branches.
everybody has differentideas on design, right?
We've had people do some stuff thatmaybe, I don't know if I would've
done it that way, but they did itand it turned out looking all right.
They buy the branches and they figureout how they want to set 'em on.
Like they'll put.
Wooden pegs off of a pole they alreadyhave, and then they put in the wiring
(41:08):
and they set 'em on their pole.
So it looks like they foliated their pole.
do vine work.
It's not something wereally advertise a lot of.
It's not a primary thing for us, butif somebody's looking to foliate a wall
so we can, instead of giving you a hardbranch, we can give you a vine branch.
You can be like, okay I want to be ableto cover this wall in vines and we'll give
you you'll get all the regular branches.
(41:29):
Then you'll get a few vine branches.
So on the back of the tree by thewall, you can put on your vine
branches and then you can run yourvines all over the wall and look
like you're foliated the whole wall.
Yeah, that's cool.
That's real cool.
Yeah.
It's also cool how you talkI'm thinking also like just
pressing it against the wall.
Like you don't have tohave the whole trunk.
You could just cut it in half or whatever.
Yeah we have 'em designed,so there are wall trees.
(41:50):
The back of the trunk hasroom for branches on it.
It just sits up against the wall and thenthe branches are only on the front 180.
Thank you for coming on the podcastagain, but we always do closing
questions just to get to knowthe person a little bit better.
I'm wondering what yourfavorite book is, your favorite
movie and your favorite food.
Oh, my favorite dishI've had in a long time.
(42:10):
I lived in Cambodia for three years.
I used to eat dish called ocha.
Which is a fried rice pin noodle sauteedwith onions, and it comes with cru and
bok choy, and then they'll put meatand over easy egg and crushed peanuts
with sweet chili sauce all over it.
It's pretty amazing.
book, oh man I read a lot of philosophy.
I'll say Meditations fromAurelius changed my life.
(42:32):
what was the other question?
favorite movie.
that's a tough one, man.
I always liked the Patriot.
Gibson really killed that part.
Think someone else had that?
Just a couple.
Oh no.
It was the, it was Braveheart.
It was Braveheart.
Bee Gibson has been on.
That's an amazing movie
too.
Yeah, I like all thosehistorical flicks, man.
So if you were to go somewhere forinspiration, where would you go?
Me personally?
(42:52):
Yeah.
Oh man.
Depends on what kind ofinspiration I'm looking for.
If I was looking for tree design,I'd probably go to Southeast Asia.
If I was looking for music,I'd probably go to the doors.
Okay.
Well, again, Brandon, we reallyappreciate your time today and you've
given us some great information.
And look forward to sending somepeople to your website and hope you
(43:12):
know you can help out some homeowners.
Yeah, man.
Thanks for having me on.
I appreciate you guys.
Thank you.
This show is all about helping you becomea better buyer, a better pool owner,
and hopefully you're gonna find someinsights into how to enjoy your pool even
more so how to help your friends, yourfamily, anybody looking to buy a pool in
the future or that want to remodel theirbackyard, add an outdoor fireplace, fire
(43:37):
pit, add an outdoor kitchen area, addsome shade cells, or whatever else it is.
We wanna be that resource for you and, andthat's the end goal here, and we promise.
That there's gonna bea ton of information.
We'll try to go through it, youknow, as relatively quickly, but
also slow so people can understand.
But the intent of the show, thereason Mike and I are doing this
is because we just got a lot inour heads and we wanna share it.
(44:00):
So we hope to see youhere every single week.
Thanks for listening.
I.
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