Summer/Outdoor Living

Garden Glow

Lighting for the Backyard

If you like the backyard nightlife, you don’t want to be sitting out there in the dark. Or, maybe you do but we’re not concerned with that here. For those of us who enjoy listening to the crickets but don’t want to have to rely on our neighbor’s porch light to keep us from tripping over the garden hose, here are a few finds to light your way, keep the bugs at bay and entertain with style.

This 6″ glass lantern can be set on a table or hung by its handle to provide some illumination on a deck or patio. A few of these hung around the yard would add much to the ambiance for entertaining. Or add a pair of votive candle holders to your outdoor table setting. These ones are citronella votive candles.

 

 

Here’s a butterfly table weight used to embellish a metal lantern we bought elsewhere. We used one to decorate a glass lantern, as well, by hooking it to the metal handle.

To keep mosquitoes from crashing your outdoor gatherings, dollar stores have a variety of solutions from citronella tea lights to citronella oil for garden torches to citronella on a stick.

I hate to sound like your mother, but feel compelled to leave you with these final words: Never leave a burning candle alone and please ensure that they don’t come in contact with anything likely to melt or otherwise go up in smoke. We don’t want to barbecue anything but the weenies.