PassionKnit, Thank you for that wonderful link with great ideas. I do use a lot of candles in my yard/garden, especially during Spring and Summer. Being in Southern Calif. we spend more time outdoors in the evening than indoors and whether I'm enjoying coffee after dinner or transplanting into a new container, I really enjoy my candles outdoors. Some of you have problems with the candles melting in the heat. I went through many a candles before I figured out a way to save them from melting during the day. My son moved back home with his little dorm refrigerator. We put it in the garage and it was supposed to hold overflow soda. Well, it does, but I have left a space for a decorative metal tray. On the tray are my candles. It takes me five minutes to gather the candles that will be in direct sunlight the following day, place them on the tray and then into the fridge. Takes me a few minutes longer to set up the candles/lighting them, but it's worth it to have my candle light in the garden in the evenings, and it saves me bucks not having to replace sun-melted candles. Since we opted for candle light instead of our electric lights (porch light, side wall garage light, security light, several strands of decorative lights) the cost for running the small fridge in the garage equaled out.....no noticable raise in our electric bill because of the garage fridge. For inexpensive candles try Big Lots if you happen to have one in your area. A bag of 100 votives = $1.98. Four inch pillars are usually under $2. Cindee11461, Like you, there's nothing better than surveying my gardens first thing in the morning with that first cuppa. :) Susiewantsroses, Brilliant...copying her friends' pics on Vellum and wrapped around candles!!! Again, thank you for that link with great ideas for my candles and all the ideas you've all added!

I've made what I call "tea-light holders" for many years and sold a lot of them. I don't have a pic of any in my garden but here are a couple on the deck beside 2 of my garden totem tables. They have copper fittings on the bottom and can be attached to copper pipe and stuck in the garden soil. I've used them all around my patio for mood lighting. These are made with punch cups and dessert bowls and I used them on the patio tables last year. I made most of the garden ones with clear cups and saucers. We also spray the copper pipe with clear spray so it remains shiny. DH pounds the end of the pipe so it is closed and pointed and therefor goes in the soil easily. If you make them you need to sand the area a bit where the copper fitting goes and also between the cup and saucer. I glue with 2 part clear epoxy, which works well. The downside is that they fill with rainwater and need cleaning frequently.

Get terra cotta pots and paint them in the team colors with spray paint. Put a potted mum or something like that in each one. Add some moss to hide the rim of the potted plant and make it look finished. Print out color copies of the team logo and mascot, put two of them back-to-back on a bamboo shishkabob skewer and stick in the pot. Depending on the size and shape of the tables, do a line of three or five per table on rectangles, a cluster of three on a round. Get some net fabric (like the goal) and bunch some of that around the pots. You can have drawings for moms or kids to get to take the plants home. No candles- in fact, many places don't allow open flames, especially with kids around.

I wonder if by "candling" the OP really means something like cloud pruning or Niwaki. As others have stated, candling is a term typically used in reference to conifers, specifically pines. A broadleaved evergreen - like the pieris - has nothing to candle! OTOH, the shrub could easily be cloud pruned, which could indeed accent the shrub's current growth habit although I am not sure it would do anything to encourage new colorful growth. That is a seasonal response that is also influenced by the amount of sun the shrub receives. In a heavily treed and shaded garden such as the OP's, that new growth coloration may or may not be very intense. Like its cousins rhododendrons and azaleas, pieris have adventitious buds under the bark up and down the stems that will respond with new growth if the shrub is pruned back hard. But given the nature of the shade present and the shrub's location, any regrowth will likely have the same reaching for light, leaning habit. And any regrowth is very slow with these shrubs. I would guess that the OP is located in the PNW, given the large western red cedars visible in the photos. These often massive trees are dead common here in more rural or larger properties and although gorgeous, not the easiest trees to garden with. The shade they create is often dense and usually quite dry.