All aglow: how to make a splash with holiday lights, beside an entry or in your garden - Home and Design

Sunset, Dec, 2003 by Kathleen N. Brenzel

As twilight arrives earlier and earlier on cold December days, something magical happens at homes around the West: Holiday lights flicker to life. They create glittering galaxies on porch ceilings, bathe eaves and gables in a warm glow, and turn stately saguaros, gnarled olive trees, or stout-trunked palms into shimmering sculptures. Some dangle in bundles beneath patio arbors like luminescent grape or wisteria clusters, or poke through rhododendron foliage in brilliant bursts. Others are draped along the edges of boat docks in places like Lake Washington and California's Newport Beach, their reflections dancing across dark waters.

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Let holiday lights spark your imagination. When creating your own display, be sure to use lights approved for outdoor use according to label directions; cool-burning miniatures are best for plants. And, of course, wear sturdy leather gloves when stringing lights around cactus or roses. A strand of miniature white lights typically costs $4-$10; these and other lights are available at most drug stores and discount stores such as Target.

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Use lights to ...

Highlight your home's architectural features. Run white lights along the edges of structural elements such as bay windows and chimneys.

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Enhance your garden. String white lights around trellises or gazebos.

Brighten sculptural plants. Plants with interesting curves or angles can be more beautiful still when illuminated against the night sky: Try Arbutus 'Marina', cactus such as saguaro and opuntia, Harry Lauder's walking stick (Corylus avellana 'Contorta'), and Mediterranean fan palm (Chamaerops humilis).

For more ideas, design advice, lighting sources, and tips on good lights for specific situations, pick up Holiday Lights! Brilliant Displays to Inspire Your Christmas Celebration, by David Seidman (Storey Publishing, North Adams, MA, 2003; $17; 800/441-5700).

Tree lighting, Sunset-style

Colored lights once flecked the olive-tree canopies at Sunset's headquarters in Menlo Park, California. But two years ago, head gardener Rick LaFrentz decided to wrap the trees' trunks and branches with miniature white lights instead. "I'll do anything to keep from climbing those trees," he says. Each tree requires twelve 150-bulb strands of lights (connected in four ropes of three strands each), plugged into four outlets near the trunk's base. To keep the lights from tangling while he works, LaFrentz wraps each strand around an 8 1/2- by 11-inch piece of corrugated cardboard (pictured below). He secures the end of each rope to the tree's bottom with a U-shaped staple, then wraps the tree from the bottom up, turning the cardboard slowly as he goes. LaFrentz spaces the lights as evenly as possible, sometimes doubling back on an area. Finally, to keep out moisture, he covers each joint between two plugs with electrical tape (bottom).

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