Inexpensive string lights in the garden make it feel magical, inviting and fun.

Cheap + Beautiful | Many of the clients in my residential landscape design practice can afford whatever kind of outdoor lighting they want, so it surprised— and delighted— me a few years ago when one of them suggested we find places to put white string lights in her large and rambling garden. “I love the way they look and the kind of feeling they bring to a garden,” she told me, rattling off a list of “happy, fun” string light sightings that included weddings outside, hill towns in Europe, those blocked-off laneways with shops and bistros in San Francisco.

My client may have been a romantic, but she was definitely on to something. Of all the ways to light a garden—up-lighting, down-lighting, moonlighting, etc.—few methods can match humble, cheap low-voltage white string lights for creating a genuine feeling of enchantment. Read more