How To Hang Backyard String Lights Without Trees (Or Proper DIY String Light Poles)

backyard string lights without trees

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This Friday my boyfriend and I invited a couple of friends from our salsa class over for a backyard soirée. To dress the place up and make the backyard look more festive, we decided to hang some string lights across our veranda.

I hoped the string lights strung back and forth across the back yard would look something…

Like this…

Or this…

I would have even settled for this…

Via @aviator.90

The problem was we didn’t have any trees close enough to use for hanging the string lights. We have string light poles. Nor did we have enough time, and my boyfriend the patience, to accomplish this project as properly executed as you see above. Our end result faired out like this…

Not terrible, in my humble opinion. It looked really beautiful once it got dark and our guests loved it.

How To DIY Backyard String Lights Without Trees

My boyfriend originally had the idea of just running the string lights around the perimeter of our covered patio. But I thought that too basic a setup and it would make the backyard look too Christmasy. Like we were too lazy to take down our Christmas lights this year.

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Despite the fact that we have three mango trees and one avocado tree in the backyard, none of them were close enough to the patio for us to run the string lights from.

I saw some awesome DIY tutorials like this one on YouTube where you could secure a wooden pole in a cement block which looked pretty cool.

If you have the time, you course the option to buy string light poles like these that you can plant into the ground and run the string lights back-and-forth from.

But if like us, you need to hang string lights without a tree, without string light hooks, or without the time to properly DIY string light poles… you can jimmy rig your own kind of string light poles — quick and dirty.

Here’s How We Did It!

Step 1: Find a pole or a rod of some sort that you can plant into the ground to run the string lights back and forth from. I used a tall (around 9 feet) wooden pole I found laying around in the garage ( likely leftover wood from another DIY project).

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Step 2: Find the center of the place you’d like to run the string lights from. In our case, it was the uncovered section of our patio.

Step 3: Dig a hole at least 1-2 feet deep.

Step 4: Shove that pole or rod right in the hole and cover up with dirt.

Step 5: Locate on the roof some hooks, bent metal, or nail that you can use to secure the string lights. If you don’t have any such convenience, find a way to hook the lights to the roof of the house.

Step 6: Run the string lights back and forth between the roof and the pole or rod.

Step 7: Enjoy!

In the future, I think we will either invest in some proper string light poles or we’ll DIY some proper backyard string light poles.

Ideas & Inspiration for Hanging Backyard String Lights Without A Tress

This blog post is just about as ghetto as our sting light pole set up pictured above. And so to give you some additional value, here are some more DIY ideas to inspire your own backyard string light extravaganza.

The string light setup pictured below is perfect for a wedding or another super special occasion. But can we just take a moment to appreciate over how gorgeous this is!

Another gorgeous backyard light setup (without trees), perfect for a wedding or special occasion.

Here are some more DIY backyard string light set up ideas.

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