Hanging lights not just for Christmas

Say what you will about holiday excess. You've got to admit that all those twinkly lights and illuminated lawn decorations are a good mood enhancer without delivering a hangover. So good that when January rolls around with all its dark dampness, it can be a cruel comedown.

The good news is that designers and manufacturers have figured out a way to co-opt the lights of Christmas and keep them going year-round. No longer just for the holidays, string lights are being incorporated into all manner of decor. Miss your Christmas tree? String lights on your ficus. Pining for that lighted jolly Santa greeting you on the lawn in the dark? Try “planting” some solar powered flowers in your planting beds or string some lights on the branches of a barren tree.

Manufacturers are incorporating tiny lights into a burgeoning variety of decorative items for inside and out. And the popular new wire lights, flexible strands that can be wound and trained, are creating a whole new world of possibilities for decorating with ambient light.

“The days are short. We're putting away the Christmas lights. And once you take down the tree and whatever decorations you have, it can just feel so empty,” said Claudia Marshall, a spokeswoman for Vermont-based The Gardener's Supply Co. “But that doesn't mean we have to put away all the lights and all the decorations.”

The catalog company carries a growing array of battery and solar-operated items to light up the landscape.

Among the most popular are Northern Light Spheres, 3-inch solar-charged balls perched on 32-inch-high stalks that put on a changing light show, glowing from green and red to blue and purple for up to 10 hours ($24.95). Place them in flower beds or planters, or along a walkway, for a winter pick-me-up.

“It creates a kind of enjoyment that you can look for in January, long after you've stowed away the holiday lights,” Marshall said.

Merry little lights

Gardener's Supply also features strings of merry little Morning Glory lights that can be wound up a post or arbor for at least the sensation of summer at a time when most of your plants are sleeping dormantly.

They're solar-powered, so you need to place them in a bright area. A sunny winter day will give you up to eight hours of blue bloom to brighten your night ($29.95).

For a futuristic nighttime glow, Gardener's Supply has solar-powered planters in a variety of sizes. By day they are plain white, but by night, they will glow with the light of 18 LEDs. You can set them to glow in one color or to change colors.

Urban Garden in Santa Rosa's Montgomery Village is filled with creative ways to use tiny LEDs to achieve a romantic lighting effect indoors.

The store features a range of realistic looking branches with built in LEDs that can be placed in vases like an arrangement.

Choose your look, from lighted burgundy plum blossom branches and lighted silver dollar branches, to charming willows and pussy willows. For a mantle or long table or even the wall, there is a 6-foot lighted willow branch garland ($32-$56.)

Use in tree

To make your outdoor landscape less gloomy, you can trim an outdoor tree or deck with bright solar-powered lanterns made of an all-weather material.

These large orbs come in bright colors like green, blue, red, orange, mint and plain white ($24). They also come lantern style, in retro-cool modernist shapes and prints with cut out designs. A small solar panel requires sun to charge their batteries.

The popular wire lights open a whole range of possibilities for decorating, Urban Garden co-owner Sam Stavros said.

“They provide a warm white light you can use year-round. They're not just Christmasy.”

He likes to bunch up a string under dome-shaped bell jars and antique apothecary jars for a sparkly effect on a table or mantle.

The strings come in 10- or 20-foot strands that are as thin as dental floss, so they are less obtrusive than the common strings of fairy lights, Stavros said.

Nitsa Knoll, the director of hospitality for Jordon Winery, said she has 20 different strands of tiny LED strings throughout her house for mood lighting, most on timers so the house is sparkly when she arrives home at the end of the day. They turn off automatically late in the evening.

“It feels like Christmas when it's not,” Knoll said. “Fairly lights really set the tone in the evening. It's such a soft and romantic light.”

She likes to fill clear glass vases with delicate wire lights and set them around the house.

The applications are endless.

“I have them hanging on a beautiful piece of art on the wall,” she said, “just loosely draped across the top. It adds a bit of sparkle so you can extend the festive holiday season without being cheesy.”

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5204. On Twitter @megmcconahey.