How to Light up Your Garden This Christmas

It’s that time of the year again and the countdown to Christmas is now fully underway. At this point, you’ve may have already been to see your town’s high-street lights be turned on. If this gave you some inspiration to illuminate your own home this winter, here’s what you need to know.

Getting Started
The first thing you should look for when purchasing lights is whether or not they’re for indoor or outdoor use. Any bulb that’s marked for outdoor use only shouldn’t be used indoors and vice versa. This is because it may burn hotter than an indoor bulb, which could raise the chance of an accident occurring. Similarly, if a bulb is marked for indoor use only, it’s likely because it isn’t as durable as it needs to be to cope with adverse weather conditions, like those we can expect in the winter. Before you make any purchase, check the product carefully to ensure you don’t waste your money or worse.

Accessing Your Options
Traditional Christmas lights came in C7 and C9 varieties. The name refers to the length of the bulbs, with C7 lights being 2 inches long while C9 lights are 3 inches long. By today’s standards, both these types of lights are old fashioned and if you’re a younger reader you’re probably more familiar with seeing them in old movies than on the street. You can still find them from specialist outlets though. While they don’t last as long as modern LEDs, they’re still the best way of creating a real authentic kind of Christmas look and remain popular amongst traditionalists.

Saving Money
Don’t get caught up in the holiday spirit when making decisions though. Running all of those older Christmas lights throughout the festive period will be expensive and this is the last time of the year where you want any unnecessary costs. To minimise the impact on your wallet, use LED light fittings like those found over at LED Hut whenever possible. Not only are these much more cost-effective to maintain, the fact that they need less power also helps to contribute to a better environment. If you’re like me and you have a tendency to leave your Christmas lights on overnight, set a timer to turn them off automatically at a certain time.

Let us know what you have planned for your own garden in the comments below.

*This is a collabrative post.
*Outdoor lights photo from Shutterstock.
*Christmas lights background from Shutterstock.