Lights add a festive touch to your garden

What a glorious evening it is when a full-moon lights up our garden or our outdoor living space.

These times are enchanting and memorable and often give us enough light to be able to see easily. But what happens if you want to have guests for an outside dinner and the moon is not out? With more and more people wanting to entertain outdoors, and with Covid-19 encouraging people to be outside, thinking of ways to light up your garden, patio or deck is a good place to start.

This job can be expensive or you can do it on a shoestring budget. There are many creative ways to accomplish making your yard, the ideal place to entertain and not spend a fortune.

We have a wonderful patio, but it has always been dark in the evening. Over the years, I tried many things to make the area more usable. I first hung stars in a tree that were made of grapevines and that were filled with Christmas lights. They looked festive but did not give off much light. I have always used lots of short votives and tall candles, but here too, this was not quite enough. As people age, more light is needed to see and I knew I needed more light if I was going to have guest to dine outside comfortably.

I visited a friend’s house this past winter and was thrilled to see what they had done to light up their deck. They had taken PVC pipe as a support and put a cap on top of the pole and hooks at the top and installed LED string lights from

pole to pole. They had painted the poles dark brown and at night, they were hardly visible. This gave a soft light and expanded their living area to outside and had done this with very little effort or cost.

I decided to try this and since my lights had to be higher in the air because of the hillside, I had to use metal poles but both worked great. I put a 2-inch PVC pipe in the ground 11⁄ feet deep and

2 put the metal pole in the sleeve in the ground. Then we put a hook at the top and strung the lights from pole to pole.

String lights have become the most popular way to light up the outdoors. You can take these decorative strings or ropes of light and drape them around a

patio, trees, shrubs or a pergola with little effort. You can find them in different sizes and even shapes.

You can also take strings of Christmas lights and drape them over shrubs to give you a little soft glow. I have them on some oakleaf hydrangeas that line

BETTY MONTGOMERY Even during daylight, a string of lights add eye-catching beauty to an outdoor space.