Whether you want to add holiday ambiance and cheer to your garden, provide whimsical points of interest, or highlight some of your favorite design features, there are seemingly unlimited options that will allow you to help your garden look spectacular.

From elegant to fanciful, all it takes is your imagination to add small touches that take your garden from being just groundcover to a work of living art.

Garden Lights that Imitate Nature

Custom made bronze or copper lights formed in the shape of flowers, with hand-blown glass blooms will illuminate your garden both with their light and their breathtaking beauty.

These lights are available in a variety of flowers – calla lilies, buttercups, Spanish bluebells, sunflowers, and evening primrose are just a few. Glass flowers come in white, cream, blue, red, or beautiful blends of hues.

Stems and leaves are either polished copper or verdigris, and some include lighted buds or clip-on leaves for added versatility.

Bamboo shoots, cattails, and other wild nature inspired, lighted plants can be found to spruce up your backyard pond.

For the nautically inclined, try a custom lighthouse. Many of these lawn and garden lights are solar powered, providing you with energy efficiency. Accessorize your seascape with a lighted conch shell or sea urchin.

Flexible Fiber Optics

Fiber optics open up a whole new world of possibilities. They do not require any special wiring and pose no electrical shock hazards from moisture because they do not carry electrical current.

Take a string of fiber optic lights to highlight the curve of a garden pathway, the edge of a pond, illuminate the tiers of a waterfall, dress up a tree trunk or branches, or outline the frame of your garden umbrella.

Fiber optic lights can also be implanted at intervals along a driveway or sidewalk to provide pools of nighttime illumination.

Add a staked fiber optic hummingbird or dragonfly among your flowers. The brilliant little garden creatures will delight your friends and family.

White is perhaps the most popular color for garden illumination, but you can create spectacular effects by using any of the many vivid colors available with fiber optics.

Go Native

Perhaps you want your garden to inspire thoughts of the South Pacific. Transport the guests of your next backyard luau to an exotic beach with the use of flaming torches. Use them to line a pathway, outline a deck, or just add points of interest around the yard.

Torches come in bamboo, brass, or copper. Most contain a reservoir for fuel, such as citronella oil, and a wick that you ignite. If you are not comfortable playing with fire, you can find electric ones as well. Torches can be up to six feet tall, or short enough to provide an interesting centerpiece to your outdoor table.

If you choose to use flaming torches, take great care in their placement. Electric torches have a flickering bulb to simulate fire, but the real ones can pose a hazard if you are not careful. Do not place them too near to overhanging trees, umbrellas, or any other flammable material. Allow enough space for your torches to breathe and blow in the evening breeze – and never use them indoors.

Medieval Magic

Create your own fairy tale by lining your garden path with hammered, storybook-inspired designs that conjure images of Hansel & Gretel or Snow White.

Invite gazing gargoyles, mystical dragons, or troublesome sprites to your garden. Add scrolled iron candleholders around your patio or deck, or place a fiber optic gazing ball in a prominent location. The combination will add a little moonlight magic and mystery to your backyard.

Have a Party

There is no end to the garden lighting options available to enhance a party, or just to create a festive setting for you and your family.

String novelty lights around your patio, deck, or balcony. Available in nearly every theme, you can find bugs, animals, birds, flowers, superheroes, sports-themed, tropical, and those that honor our favorite movies and television shows. There are string lights to match any theme to your parties, or to go with any holiday.

Chinese paper lights are another fun way to add color and light to your garden. Colorful cylinders, globes, or squares add a touch of the Far East to your barbecue or party.

Fiber optic or rope light creations can adorn your trees and shrubbery, or add an illuminated sculpture to your flowerbed.

For the enduring sports fan, helmet-shaped pathway lights can be found bearing your favorite team’s logo.

To push your party lighting over the top, add a colorful light wheel, psychedelic strobe lights, or an illuminated fog machine.

Unless you are having a party or holding a special event at your house, the use of highly unusual garden lights should be kept to a minimum. Use them to enhance your décor or style, or to add small conversation pieces. Heavy usage, though, can lead to an appearance of gaudiness. Go for interesting, inspirational, or artistic when choosing garden lighting fixtures. Place them where they will have the most dramatic effect, but do not overdo it.