Shorter days inspire gardeners to push back the night by adding glowing lights around the garden. With so many lighting options available, it is easy to turn the patio and garden into a sparkling fairyland.
Create a warm welcome by framing an entrance to the home or garden with sparkling lights. Since many porches and patios 
have electrical outlets, strands of electric bulbs add whimsy, style, or color around support posts, doorways, and rooflines.
To maximize impact, layer and mix lighting choices. In addition to lights along a roofline, drape lights over shrubs and bushes, outline limbs of trees, place candles on tables, and add solar decorations into pots. Scatter stakes of solar lighting or oil lamps in flower beds or along paths. Line luminarias or solar night lighting along sidewalks and edges of garden beds.
Add drama by floating lights in pools, ponds, or containers of water. Hang glittering spheres, strands, or icicles in trees. Wrap lights strands around tree trunks and spangle branches. Metal and bamboo trellises bedecked with lights add dimension and height to pots or flower beds. A Mason jar filled with battery-operated candles or strands of fairy lights glows along the edge of a path, tucked into flower beds and pots, or hung from the trees.
This winter don’t put away the holiday lights. Keep them handy for summer parties and any evening you need to add a little twinkle to the night.
Written by Jackye Meinecke • Photos courtesy Gardener’s Supply Company
Originally published in Neighbors magazine
Posted by LasCruces.com
