Tree & Landscape Lighting · Guelph

Tree and Landscape Christmas Lighting in Guelph

Guelph's older streets have the trees that make a holiday display, and the newer ones have the shrubs and walkways that tie a roofline to the ground. Both are lit with the same care for cords, power lines and whose land the tree is on.

A lit roofline on its own can look like an outline floating in the dark. A wrapped trunk, a row of lit cedars along the walk or a pair of wreaths on the porch columns ground it, and in the mature-canopy neighbourhoods of the old city a single big maple wrapped to its first branches does more than the whole roof.

Trees

• Trunk wraps. Tight spirals of mini or wide-angle LEDs from the ground to the first major branches. Spacing is kept even so the trunk reads as a column of light.
• Branch and canopy wraps. Lights carried out along the main limbs. Deciduous trees are wrapped in November while the bark is dry and before the ice; the lights are tied with soft ties, never nailed or stapled into the tree.
• Evergreens. Cedars, spruce and junipers are draped or netted from the top so the lights sit inside the foliage. Tall spruce are done with a lift or pole and only where clear of wires.

Power lines

ESA's holiday guidance asks for at least three metres of clearance from overhead power lines when using a ladder or decorating an outdoor tree. Many older Guelph streets have street trees growing up through the service drop or near the distribution lines along the back lot line. Any tree that comes within that distance of a line is not climbed or decorated in the canopy, full stop; its trunk can still be wrapped from the ground.

Whose tree it is

In Guelph the City's land often runs past the sidewalk to your property line, and the City's encroachment page notes that items on City property, beyond a qualifying low boulevard garden, need a permit or written agreement. Boulevard trees are City trees. The install plan keeps stakes, ground lights and decorations on your side of the line and lights trees in your own yard; if you want the boulevard tree included, ask the City first.

Shrubs, walkways and the porch

• Shrubs and hedges. Net lights or draped strands, sized to the plant so nothing is stretched.
• Walkways and steps. Low stake lights or lit garland on railings. Stakes go in before the ground freezes, which in Guelph is the case for much of December.
• Wreaths and garland. Pre-lit or lit on site, hung on the door, porch columns, railings and windows with removable hangers.

Cords, snow and the snowblower

ESA asks that connections stay off the ground and away from puddles, driveways and walkways. On a lawn that will be under snow for most of December, that means connections lifted on stakes or tied into the shrub, cords routed along the house and the garden bed rather than across the drive, and nothing left where a plow, shovel or snowblower will find it. Everything runs from GFCI outlets.

Frequently asked questions

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