Net Lights for Bushes: Which LED Nets to Stock and How to Price the Add-On

Net lights for bushes are the fastest add-on a crew can sell and the easiest one to under-order. Every roofline job has shrubs under the windows, and the homeowner is standing right there asking what else you can light. Stock the right LED nets, count strands on the walkthrough, and that question turns into money. Start with the LED net lights collection at Christmas Lights HQ, then use this guide to decide what to stock, how much to order, and how to quote it.

In the video above, I show how to power a whole row of bushes from one extension cord. Power routing is half of what makes nets a clean, repeatable add-on instead of a cord mess under the windows.

When I ran four crews and the install business was doing over $1M a year, bushes were on residential tickets all season long. We never sold them as a separate service. They were the finish on the roofline job, right next to a lit wreath on the gable. That is how you should sell them too.

What are the best net lights for bushes on a professional install?

The best net lights for bushes on a pro install are LED grids with a wire color that disappears into the shrub and a bulb color that matches the roofline. Warm white is the standard. Keep one multicolor option on the truck for the customers who ask. Stock one grid, learn it, and your crew gets fast.

The bar is not high, but store-bought nets miss it anyway. They tangle, the grid stretches out of square, and the color never matches the C9 bulbs on the roof. The customer sees two different jobs on one house. Here is what to look for in a net you plan to put on every truck.

• LED, not incandescent. Lower draw means more nets on one cord and fewer breaker problems on older homes.
• Wire color that hides in the foliage. The light should look like it is coming from inside the bush, not sitting on top of it.
• Bulb color matched to the roofline. A warm white roofline over cool white bushes looks like two contractors worked the same house.
• A grid that holds its shape. Pro-grade nets drape and tuck without fighting you. That is the whole labor advantage.

LED net lights vs wrapping bushes with mini lights: which is faster for a crew?

Nets are faster on the bushes you see most: rounded foundation shrubs in a row. A net drapes over the top, gets tucked at the edges, and plugs in. A mini light wrap means walking the strand around and through the bush by hand. Wraps still win on odd-shaped, sparse, or tall narrow shrubs where a grid shows gaps.

My crews carried both. The rule was simple to teach. If the bush is rounded and full, net it. If it is spindly, shaped like a cone, or has big holes, wrap it. I covered the wrap technique and net sizing in the LED bush lights guide, so I will not repeat the full method here. This post is about what to stock and what to charge.

How many net lights do you need per bush or shrub?

Count strands, not bushes. One net covers a bush its grid can drape over with the edges tucked under. Anywhere the grid stretches thin or leaves a bare side facing the street, add another net. A large bush can take 3. Write the strand count beside each bush on the walkthrough sheet and build the order from that total.

This is where new contractors get burned. They count bushes on the walkthrough, order one net per bush, and then stand in the bed on install day holding a grid that covers half of a big boxwood. Here is how to size the whole season's order instead of one job at a time.

1. Walk every booked job and count nets per bush, not bushes per job. A big bush gets its real count on paper, not a guess.
2. Add the counts across every booked job. That total is your base order.
3. Add spares for the bushes you discover on install day and the customer who adds the side yard while you are there. A net on the truck sells itself. A net on backorder does not.
4. Run the strand counts through the bush lighting calculator as a second check before you place the order.
5. Order nets with the rest of your wholesale order ahead of the season, not bush by bush as jobs come in.

Which LED net lights should you buy?

Buy one warm white LED net as your primary and stock it deep. It matches a warm white C9 roofline, the standard package, and it covers the standard foundation shrub. Add a multicolor net as your second item once customers ask for it. Two items on the truck beats six items you have to sort.

Fewer items means the crew never has to choose. It means replacements match what is already on the house next year. It means your storage shelf has two labels instead of a bin of mystery nets. Everything in the HQ net lights collection is pro-grade, so the decision is color and grid size, not quality.

How do you install net lights on bushes so they look clean and stay put?

Drape the net from the top of the bush, square the grid so the rows run level, and tuck every edge under the outer branches. Plug on the house side, never the street side. The homeowner should see light on the bush and nothing else. A net that sags or shows a loose edge looks like a store-bought job.

• Start at the end closest to power and work away from it so cords never cross the bed.
• Overlap two nets on a large bush instead of stretching one. A stretched grid shows its gaps from a block away.
• Tuck the plug tails behind the bush and keep the cord in the bed so takedown is one pull, not a hunt through the mulch.
• Walk to the curb before you leave. If a bare side shows, add a net now, not on a callback.

How do you price net lights on bushes as an add-on?

Quote bushes at $30 to $50 per strand dressed, by strand count rather than by bush, because a large bush can take 3 strands. Put the line on the roofline proposal, not a separate quote. Takedown is included and never listed as its own line. The deposit covers the whole ticket, 35% to 50% at booking.

Per strand is the only fair way to do it. A customer with three big bushes and a customer with eight small ones are not the same job, and strand count tracks both the labor and the material. Per bush pricing either overcharges the small shrub or gives away the big one.

The sales side is where nets earn their place on the truck. On the walkthrough, I would point at the bushes while we were still talking about the roofline. 'We will net these so the front reads as one display, top to bottom.' Said that way, bushes are not an upsell the customer has to think about. They are the finish. The same walkthrough carries the wreath on the gable and the stakes on the walkway, and the whole stack lands on one proposal.

Stack those together and the bushes, the wreath, and the walkway can move a roofline ticket up without adding a second truck day. Nets cost the least crew time of anything in that table, which is why they belong on every residential proposal you write.

How do you power net lights with the rest of the roofline display?

Run one extension cord along the foundation bed behind the bushes and feed each net from it in a line, plug to plug, the way I show in the video. Tie that cord to the same timer as the roofline so the whole display comes on together. Count the nets in your load plan like any other strand.

LED nets draw little, so a full row of bushes on one cord is normal. Still check the end-to-end connection limit on the net's tag before you chain a long row, and keep every connection up off the ground where water pools. A net that trips a GFCI on the first rainy night costs you a service call that wipes out what you charged for the bush.

One more reason to put bushes on the roofline timer: the homeowner sees one display, not a roofline that comes on at dusk and bushes that come on whenever they remember to plug them in. The whole house lights up at once. That is the moment they tell the neighbor about.

Nets are the add-on I would put on every residential proposal if I were starting over today. They are fast, they stock small, and they make the roofline look finished. What is keeping bushes off your quotes this season: the stock, the pricing, or the pitch?