Landscaping company lights up the holidays

WASILLA — More than one frustrated homeowner has probably been there: atop a tall ladder, trying to use a ski pole to maneuver a beach-ball sized tangle of Christmas lights around a 60-foot spruce tree.

To get those winter lights where they need to be, there are Valley companies that can help. DG Signs in Palmer offers a bucket truck for an hourly rate, while equipment rental businesses in both Palmer and Wasilla can help with finding a man lift for those who insist on going it alone.

But soothing holiday lighting heartburn is a business on which the folks at Gage Tree Service in Wasilla have capitalized.

The company has found a niche of sorts in the Valley by using their equipment and expertise to install not only tree lighting, but ready-made home displays as well.

While homeowners may hire a local handyman, a nimble neighborhood kid or choose the do-it-yourself route for putting up their holiday display each year, Gage offers packages that range from a bucket truck service for lighting that tallest tree to putting up, taking down and storing a home’s winter light display.

In the spring and summer, the company focuses on tree care, land clearing and other landscaping services. But come August, the “lighting letters” go out to existing clients, asking about their needs for the upcoming winter season. The response is almost instant, said the company’s Wasilla office manager Honna Imm.

“We get an almost immediate response from those letters asking folks what they want for the winter,” Imm said. “People look forward to seeing those lights go up.”

Imm said the installations usually begin around the middle of September, adding that for new clients, Gage has an estimator who can work with a customer on a full lighting package for a house and the surrounding grounds.

“We can provide and install the lights, replace and repair bulbs and then come and take it all away at the end of the season,” which usually ends in early March Imm said. She added that Gage (which also has an Anchorage office) has been offering the lighting services in the Valley for eight years.

Along with white LED lights, Imm said Gage also features the familiar C9 incandescent bulbs, a favorite of homeowners for trimming the eaves of houses.

“LED lights are great and very efficient, but they don’t heat up and sometimes tend to get covered in snow,” Imm said. “Incandescent bulbs do get warm and will melt the snow, but they use more electricity.”

Imm said business has already surpassed last year’s numbers, with around 300 clients — both business and residential — on the rolls between the company’s two locations. Imm said local businesses like the Kristan Cole real estate office and Winter Windows in Wasilla as well as Ray’s Child Care and Pioneer Pizza in Palmer feature lighting from Gage. Even Alyeska Resort in Girdwood relies on the company for some of its holiday decorating, Imm added.

“The lighting is one of our favorite things to do,” Imm said. “It’s great to bring joy and cheer to folks this time of year.”

And Gage has set its own bar pretty high, with a very visible display at the Wasilla office, where a giant cottonwood tree adorned with 15,000 LED lights dominates the landscape along a stretch of the Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

“People ask about that tree a lot; I guess it can be seen from pretty far away,” Imm said. “It takes us about three days to light it.”

Contact reporter Steven Merritt at 352-2269 or steven.merritt@frontiersman.com