Tree & Landscape Lighting · Kitchener

Tree and Landscape Lighting in Kitchener

Kitchener's older neighbourhoods have the trees that make a display: big front-yard maples in Stanley Park and Forest Heights, mature evergreens in Rockway. A wrapped trunk is what people slow down for.

The house sets the frame; the trees fill it. A roofline alone can look thin on a bungalow set back from the road. One wrapped maple and a lit walkway changes the whole yard.

Trees

• Trunk wraps. Mini or wide-angle LED wound tightly up the trunk and into the first main limbs. Spacing is kept even so it reads cleanly from the street. A large Stanley Park maple might take several hundred feet of string to the first crotch.
• Branch wraps. Each major branch followed out to a set point. This is the slow, detailed work and is quoted per tree.
• Canopy draping. On evergreens, lights spiralled or draped from the top so the shape shows.

Overhead lines

The Electrical Safety Authority asks anyone decorating an outdoor tree or using a ladder to check for overhead power lines first and keep at least three metres away. On many older Kitchener streets the service drop to the house runs through or past the front-yard tree. Branches near that line are not wrapped, and the display is designed around it.

Shrubs, walkways and the porch

• Shrubs and hedges. Net lights or wrapped strings on cedars, boxwood and yews along the foundation.
• Walkways and beds. Stake lights or a low run along the path, kept out of the line of the shovel and snowblower.
• Wreaths and garland. Pre-lit or lit on site, hung on the door, porch posts, railings and above the garage, battery or plug-in as the power allows.

Trees and the tree

Planning the power

Trees are often a long way from the nearest outlet, especially on the deep Stanley Park and Forest Heights lots. Runs to a tree are planned with outdoor-rated cords, connections lifted off the snow and sealed, and nothing laid across the driveway where the car or the plow will find it. A large wrapped maple can draw more than the roofline, so it often gets its own GFCI-protected circuit and its own timer setting.

Lights on a tree are not tied tight enough to girdle a branch, and they come off in January so they do not grow in. Young boulevard trees on the newer streets are owned by the City; lights are kept to your own trees unless you know otherwise.

Frequently asked questions

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