Garden Lighting and Solar Outdoor Lights

Walking down a path towards your porch at night or sitting in your garden in the evening can be made into a fairy tale. Solar garden lighting has made it possible to create a perfect garden. One filled with mystical outdoor lights, twinkling at you from the sides of the garden paths, from behind the bushes and by the overhanging trees. With Solar Garden lighting it is not only possible but is also easy. There is no maintenance, no wiring, no batteries, just simple installation and a very low cost. There are many uses for exterior landscape lighting. It is used to beautify your backyard, light up your pathway and make the driveway safe.

Here we have a collection of outdoor lights that will do the trick for you. All our landscape lighting is solar power and thus does not require any batteries or wiring. They receive their power from the sun and can use that energy throughout most of the night. Our outdoor lights go on for up to 8 hours! Solar power is ecologically friendly and everything will eventually run on it.

• Benefits of solar garden lighting
• Installation instructions
• What you need to know about solar lighting

Benefits of solar garden lighting

Everybody is talking about switching to solar power but what are the real advantages of doing so? The main benefits are cost savings, safety, flexibility and ease of use.

Solar Garden Lighting will save you money. All the units are self contained and unlike other exterior lighting need no wiring. Thus with regular outdoor lights you need to pay a hefty electrical bill while with solar lights you are done paying as soon as you buy them. An average residential consumption of electricity in the USA in 1999 was 866kwh per month with an average bill of $70.68 (US DOE). By using solar outdoor lighting you can start cutting those unnecessary expenses down.

Solar Garden Lighting is very safe. As mentioned before it has no wiring and the bulbs are sealed so that water would not get through as these are exterior lights. The solar batteries are so well place that you need to examine the light post very closely to see where they are.

Solar Garden Lighting is very flexible. It can placed go wherever you want. Backyard, Deck, Pathway, Garden, Roof and more are possible. Solar outdoor lights are much easier to mount and place than the lights with wiring as you do not need to connect it to the sockets. You can even use outdoor lighting that we carry as a portable light. As there is no cord to hinder your movement, you can take it anywhere with you. This type of exterior lighting has much better illumination than most flashlights.

Solar Garden Lighting is easy to use. For permanent installation you just need to stick it into the ground or use the attached screws to mount it into cement. Then you just turn it on and enjoy. Most of the garden lighting that we carry comes with automatic light-sensor, so when it gets dark they light up. You can turn it off if you don’t want the outdoor lights to work.

So in short, the benefits of garden lighting on solar power are:

• No wiring or trenching outdoors
• Garden light work well to deter crime
• Safety due to well illuminated landscape
• Installation of your solar garden can be done anywhere without the need for electricity
• Outdoor lights have no maintenance cost
• Outdoor lights have will not affect your electricity bill
• Solar Garden lighting is independent of electrical grid and will work regardless if the rest of the power works or not
• Solar garden lighting will function even after cloudy days
• Solar outdoor lights are as eco-friendly as it gets

How to install

1) Pick a place that gets your garden lightning the most sun. Don’t worry if the place is not fully accessible to the sun for the entire day period. For your reference, some of the sunniest places in North America like Los Angeles receive around 5.5 hours of sunlight throughout the year, while the lower sunlight areas like Nova Scotia, Canada would receive around 2.5 hours of sunlight throughout the year. Factors of influence:

• Shade. Especially bad at peak sunlight time of 9am-3pm
• Area with heavier traffic
• Direct sunlight is better than reflected or partial
• Tilt to 15% for best sunlight collection (if there is an option for tilt of course).

2) Mount the garden lighting in the chosen location

1. If it is a stake-construction, than simply push it into the ground
2. If it is a screw-construction, than
   1. Drill the holes for the screws using a drill
   2. Fasten the screws to hold the outdoor light in place.

3) Turn on the outdoor light and let it charge.

What you need to know as a shopper for your solar garden?

Garden lighting provides safety and security to your home. A well-designed landscape lighting plan can also make your backyard come to life wherever you want.

When you are selecting your solar garden lighting, it should provide you with 8-10 hours of light when fully charged before the battery dies out and will need to recoup. In the summer it will definitely run at full capacity, but come winter, one can expect up to a 50% drop in productivity due to lack of sun light. The rechargeable batteries that are used in our outdoor lights are very sturdy and would not need to be replaced for almost 3-4 years. They are inexpensive and are very easy to install. Most solar garden lights use LED bulbs as they are very long lasting. These bulbs will serve you for 20-25 years.

You should plan you solar outdoor lighting based on focal point such as trees, entrances, flower arrangements and other unique used and unused parts of your yard. You should consider dark spots and if possible illuminate them for safety and security. Be careful that you do not place your outdoor lights in the places which are well maintained. You don’t want a lawnmower or a tree cutter to damage the landscape lighting that you so carefully arranged.

There are a number of things that you should think about when planning your landscape lighting:

1. Number of outdoor lights - too many may be inefficient while too little could be ineffective. Designer’s rule of thumb is to place the lights approximately 3m of each other so they would create an ensemble and amplify each other’s effect.
2. Type of exterior landscape lighting - there are several categories for solar yard lighting.
   1. Tier lights - outdoor lighting that minimizes glare making them ideal for illuminating steps and walking paths.
   2. Flood lights - outdoor lighting that is perfect for those dark spots in your garden
   3. Spotlights - exterior landscape lighting that is used for outlining or illuminating something special in your yard such as a great tree or a statue.
   4. Well lights - exterior landscape lighting used for highlighting a garden structure or a wall
   5. Low fixtures - outdoor lights that are very close to the ground and great for landscape borders and driveways.
   6. Tall fixtures - exterior landscape lights that illuminate a large area and are best for patios and courts.
3. Exterior Landscape Lighting Effects - some exterior lighting effects that will help you plan out your garden.
   1. Lesion Light: use a beam of light to just touch the surface of an object to reveal its texture.
   2. Focus light: use a beam of light from above to create a circular pattern around an object and bring attention to it.
   3. Accent light: use a bright beam of light to contrast an object in a dark area.
   4. Shaping light: put the light behind an object to outline its shape on the lit wall.
   5. Shadow light: using the low fixtures to throw a shadow on a surface behind it.
   6. Gateway light: place the lights opposite to each other pointing into the same direction, creating an illusion of an entry point.

The solar landscape lighting that we carry is some of the best quality to cost outdoor lights that there is. To build your dream yard all you need is to get them. To add to your garden we sell a wide selection of other garden accessories like plant brackets, outdoor furniture, and firepits. If you are interested in interior lights you can find them in our lighting and accessories section. We hope that you were got the information that you needed on solar garden lighting.