If you’ve driven through certain Charleston neighborhoods after dark, you may have noticed something in the trees. Warm, glowing spheres hanging from the branches of live oaks, scattered at different heights, almost like ornaments scaled up to match the size of the tree. They stop people in their tracks. And once you’ve seen them, you start noticing them everywhere.

These are grapevine ball lights, and they’ve become one of the most requested Charleston landscape lighting features we install. They work for the holidays, sure. But most of the people who get them keep them up year-round because they look that good.

What Charleston grapevine lights are

Our crew sources natural grapevine to handcraft these one-of-a-kind beauties, then wraps them with warm LED lights by hand. It’s more work that way, but it gives every light an organic, textured quality that you can’t get from a factory-made product. Some people describe them as chandeliers hanging in the trees, and honestly, that’s not far off from the truth. The effect is striking without being flashy, and if anything, the chandelier designation undersells the look.

We typically hang them in sets of six, with two small, two mid-sized, and two large. Having different-sized lights creates this sense of depth and visual interest that really comes across when you stagger them across the branches of a mature live oak. Each one is secured to the tree with cables so it stays put through wind and storms, and they run on low-voltage wiring so there’s no risk of driving up the energy bill or tripping a breaker when the whole set turns on.

You might hear them called by any of a number of names. Grapevine lights, grapevine spheres, light balls, or lit balls. It depends on who you ask, but no matter what you call them, they’re a signature look across Charleston, and for good reason.

Custom outdoor lighting to set the scene

What makes Charleston grapevine lights so wonderful is just how versatile they are. You can hang them up just about anywhere. You can have them in the front yard to create a warm first impression, or you can hang them in the backyard to create a backdrop for dinners, parties, or swimming under the “stars”. The light they give off is soft enough to be ambient, but bright enough to get the job done.

These lights work as well on private property as they do in public spaces. That’s why a lot of municipal parks and community gathering areas in and around Charleston have started using them as well. You can’t match the warmth they bring to outdoor spaces year-round.

And that’s just grapevine balls on their own. When you use them as part of a broader custom outdoor lighting design, even more possibilities open up. You can pair them with landscape lighting along walkways, or perhaps uplighting on the trunk of the oak. So not only do they work on their own, but these lights are great team players, too.

Ready to Light Up Your Charleston Property?

Live oaks are a defining feature of Charleston, and grapevine ball lights were designed with those trees in mind. There’s just something about the way the light filters through Spanish moss.

At Carolina Landscape Lighting, we’ve been designing and installing custom outdoor lighting in Charleston and Mount Pleasant since 2012. If you’ve been admiring grapevine ball lights around town and wondering what it would take to get them on your property, we’d love to walk through the options with you.

To get started today, you can contact us here or give us a call at (843) 817-9797.