Lighting the garden, not just the patio

Four surfaces, four formats

Trees take more string than anyone expects

Wrapping consumes length at a rate outlining never does, because the strand travels around the trunk rather than along it. The arithmetic is short and it is worth doing before ordering.

A 100-count LED mini string at 4-inch spacing is the right format for this — close spacing reads as glow rather than as points. The full method, including how the vertical gap changes the look, is on wrapping trees and columns.

Hedges want a net, not a spiral

A dense shrub has no single axis to wrap around, so hand-wrapping produces bright patches and dark hollows and takes an hour doing it. A 15 by 5 foot mesh of 300 LEDs drops over the whole thing in one movement and reads as even coverage.

Check the published maximum connected count before planning a long hedge run — nets are typically limited to two or three sets end to end, which is a much tighter constraint than the circuit. Both limits are explained on connecting light strings, and the net comparison is on net lights.

The large specimen tree

A single large tree is the best thing in most gardens to light, and it is the one place a long mappable string earns its price. The 400-LED Twinkly string publishes 105 feet with individually addressable RGB+W LEDs, which is enough length to work a substantial canopy in one piece and then run effects along it rather than switching the whole thing on and off.

The published IP44 rating is the caveat to respect: that is rain rather than immersion, so it belongs up in a canopy where water runs off, not at ground level where it can sit in a puddle. The wider smart-lighting comparison is on smart lighting.

Getting power to the far end

This is what actually decides whether a garden scheme is practical, and it is worth settling before buying any lights. A garden run is long, it crosses ground people walk on, and it is the one part of the installation that is visible in daylight.

A 50-foot 16 AWG green outdoor cord publishes 13 A on an SJTW outdoor jacket, which is comfortably ahead of what LED garden lighting draws, and the green jacket is the actual feature — it is the run you would rather not see crossing a lawn. Where the same cord is feeding a larger display rather than garden lighting, step up to 14 gauge; the comparison is on extension cords by gauge.

Where a cord genuinely cannot cross — a path, a gate, a shared route — solar is the right answer rather than a compromise, provided the panel gets direct daylight. The trade is worked through on solar vs plug-in outdoor lighting.

The restraint that makes a garden look lit

Lighting everything produces a flat, evenly bright garden that reads as security lighting. Lighting three things and leaving the rest dark produces depth, because the dark is what makes the lit parts read.

Pick a near element, a mid element and one thing at the back — a wrapped trunk close to the house, a hedge run in the middle, one specimen tree at the boundary — and stop there. It is also the cheaper answer, which is unusual for advice about lighting. The patio overhead layer that sits in front of all of it is on patio string lights.