Tree & Landscape Lighting · Cambridge

Tree and Landscape Christmas Lighting in Cambridge

Cambridge's older streets have the trees that make a display: big maples on the Galt hills, along the river in Preston, and around Hespeler's mill-town houses. Lighting them well is a different job from a roofline.

Tree and landscape lighting is where a display gets its depth. The roofline gives the outline; a wrapped trunk, a lit spruce and a glowing front walk make it a scene. It is also where the most electricity-hungry mistakes are made, so everything is LED and everything is on the same timer as the roofline.

Trees

• Trunk and branch wraps. Mini-lights wrapped tight up the trunk and out along the main limbs, a classic treatment on the bare maples and ash of older Galt and Preston streets. Wrap density is set in the design, because it sets both the look and the time on the job.
• Evergreens. Spruce, pine and cedar lit with larger bulbs draped through the branches rather than wound tight, so the shape reads at night.
• Height. Trees are lit to a height that can be reached safely from a ladder or a lift, and the quote says how high.

Power lines come first

ESA's guidance is to check for overhead power lines before decorating trees and to stay at least three metres away. On streets where the service wire runs through or past a front-yard tree, which is common in older parts of Preston and Hespeler, the canopy near the wire is not lit at all. That is said in the quote and shown in the design.

Beds, walks and porches

• Shrubs and hedges. Net lights on boxwood, yews and cedar hedges, quick to fit and even in coverage.
• Walkways. Stake lights or low path markers along the front walk, set where the snowblower and the shovel will not catch them.
• Wreaths and garland. Lit wreaths on doors and gables, garland along porch railings and over doorways, hung with hooks and ties that do not mark paint or brick.

Connections on the ground

Ground-level lighting is the part of a display most exposed to water. ESA asks for connections to be kept off the ground and away from puddles, driveways and walkways, and for GFCI protection on outdoor connections. Connections are raised on stakes or into shrubs, cords are routed away from where melt runs off the driveway, and the run is fed from a protected outlet.

Frequently asked questions

Serving Cambridge and surrounding areas. Contact us for a no-obligation quote specific to your property.