197-Foot String Lights

Just under two hundred feet of string carrying 580 LEDs — enough to do a whole garden rather than one pergola. Strung between trees or zig-zagged over a patio, it is the cheapest thing that changes how a space feels after dark.

The LEDs are multicolour with eight modes on a remote: steady, wave, sequential, slow glow, chasing, fade, twinkle and combination. It remembers the mode you left it on, and the timer runs six hours on, eighteen off, so it comes back the next evening without being switched.

This is a festive string rather than a warm-white bistro festoon — it earns its keep at Christmas and for parties more than as everyday patio lighting. It plugs into an outlet through a low-voltage transformer; it is not solar. Rated IP44, which means rain and snow are fine and submersion is not.