From very early on in history the palm tree has been a symbol of victory with Roman gladiators often being given a palm branch to symbolize their victory over another competitor, these days however the palm tree celebrates victory in another way. Being surrounded by palm trees generally either means that you live in some or the more temperate states or that you are holidaying somewhere tropical, in recent years those who don’t live in such temperate climates have wanted to get a little palm tree action also and such has been the birth of the artificial palm tree.

About thirty years ago the best way of representing a palm tree was with neon lights as they were hugely in fashion at the time, these neon representations of palm trees were of course incredibly tacky, however they still managed to spread a tropical vibe. The next incarnation of fake palm trees were internally light Perspex palm trees, the idea of these were that they were modelled reasonably accurately to represent a palm tree during the day time and at night you could either light up the entire tree or light up the segments in an ascending order for a more dramatic effect. These type of light up palms can still be seen in many places, most notably Las Vegas were they were a real hit.

  The next type of artificial palm trees to hit the market were inorganic replicas, these replicas are generally made by casting an inorganic material such as rubber, plastic, or a composite into a mould where it takes on the shape of whatever it is intended to look like, initially these fake palms looked pretty terrible however as the technology has progressed so has the look and feel of the trees and these days replica trees can be made to be indistinguishable from regular palm trees. The final type of tree will always look the most lifelike because they are made from actual palm trees, preserved palm trees as they are called are made by taking an actual palm tree then totally dehydrating it and boring out the middle, once the middle is empty it is filled with resin and support rods which are fixed to the base, once all this is done you basically have a real life palm with you will never need to water, and that is why preserved palm trees are considered to be the ultimate in artificial palm trees.