Trees are the answer to De-LIGHT-ful holiday displays. Millions of hardworking trees across the country embrace billions of twinkling lights as we celebrate Christmas and a host of other winter holidays. In many communities, illuminated trees carry the torch, so to speak, every night of the year – casting a cheerful glow and adding character to city plazas, shopping malls, Main Streets, and public and private gardens.
Each year, USA Today presents a Top 10 “Best Botanical Garden Holiday Lights Display” list. This year’s top pick is the display at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, Virginia, with other notable displays from coast to coast in Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, South Carolina, California and Maine. We’d make it a dozen by including a couple of our favorites: Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania and Brooklyn Botanic Garden in New York. A second list includes lighting extravaganzas that embrace trees and structures in public spaces that are free and open to the public: “Best Public Holiday Lights Display.”
We encourage you to celebrate the season by visiting one of many fantastic botanical light shows – likely taking place at a public garden near you. Most run through the first weekend of the new year or beyond. If there are no public displays nearby, we urge you to wander nearby residential areas. You’re likely to discover trees you’ve never noticed before, illuminated in celebration of the season.
Some trees are particularly well-suited for the task of supporting holiday lights, including these featured below.
Sparkling Sprite® Crabapple
Malus ‘JFS-KW207’ PP 27954
Genetically destined to be a topiary tree, Sparkling Sprite® Crabapple is perfect for holiday lighting projects. Unlike most ornamental crabapples, it attains a perfectly symmetrical, rounded head with little to no pruning. Clear twinkling lights will brighten the already colorful yellow-orange fruits that inspired its name.
In spring, pink buds open to fragrant, pink-tinged white flowers that smother its densely branched, rounded head. Perfectly suited for patio, terrace or container culture, the summer foliage of this petite top-grafted tree is especially clean, bright green and disease resistant.
The four-season show goes on well into winter, when an abundant crop of tiny persistent fruits turns from golden yellow to orange and attracts birds to the garden.
Musashino Zelkova
Zelkova serrata ‘Musashino’
Wrap the trunk and encircle the lower branches of this vase-shaped beauty to create a slender champagne glass for your outdoor holiday display. Tolerance of drought and heat, cold hardiness, and general adaptability to difficult site conditions are among the characteristics of this columnar form of Zelkova serrata. Tailored for tight places, its slender form is ideally suited for narrow spaces. Upright branches and tightly columnar form accommodate passing vehicles and pedestrians. Musashino performs very well across a wide range of climate zones, USDA Zones 5 to 9 and is a popular choice of urban foresters across the country.
Quick Fire® Hydrangea
Hydrangea paniculata ‘Bulk’ PP 16812
This little cutie is among the many tree-form hydrangeas that are the perfect size for a holiday topiary. This breakthrough cultivar blooms a month earlier than is typical of the species. Flowers change quickly from white to a rich pinkish red; color that lasts through the summer months and deepens to dark pink in the fall. Reddish-orange fall color complements the rosy-pink flowers of autumn and extends its season of beauty. Flowers are produced on new wood, and their color is not affected by soil pH.
Pacific Fire Maple
Acer circinatum ‘Pacific Fire’
Drape this beauty with some clear, sparkling holiday lights and stand back! Coral-red stems of this unique cultivar of our Pacific Northwest vine maple glow salmon-orange in the wintertime. It’s safe to say that tree bark rarely outshines fall foliage until you cross paths this one, and when you do, it’s sure to stop you in your tracks.
Young branches turn brilliant red in autumn, just in time to light the winter landscape on fire.. Multi-stemmed, upright and spreading, its medium green leaves of summer turn to orange yellow in autumn. Red winged samaras add sparkle to the autumn scene.
Gardeners! Please note that our nursery is strictly wholesale. To purchase these and other trees grown by our nursery, please use our Retailer Locator to find sources of JFS trees near you.
