Using solar lights in the garden (Photo by Jane Gates)
The styles and fixtures available for landscape solar lighting are constantly changing and growing. As the demand for solar lighting grows in popularity, there are more choices than ever before in styles being offered in retail stores, garden centers, home stores and the internet. These lights work by collecting daytime sunshine so they won't add to your electric bill. Not only do these lights save electricity, but they allow you to bypass the whole issue of wires. Easy to install, you can use these wonderful lights to decorate you garden and to make it safer for moving about after dark. Here are some ideas to help you 'paint' beautiful night pictures with solar lighting.
Solar lights are not intense enough to get lighting thrown for an appreciable distance. So, you can't yet get the interesting effects of front and back-lighting or up and down lighting that you can create with low voltage lighting and spot lights. What you can do is use solar lamps to create glowing areas.
You can find cool or warm colored lamps. The cool, bright white look has more of an eerie or stark effect and does well in a contemporary, stylistic or artistic styled garden. While the warm, orange/yellow lamps give a more ‘homey’, romantic or rustic feel.
Use solar lamps to line a meandering walkway or edge a patio. They look wonderful winding up a hillside or creating a pathway to a more brilliantly lit focal point. You can also use solar lamps on tabletops for a cozy outdoor eating area. There are designs that look like table lamps or camping lamps that will help create mood lighting. You might want to hang one from a pole to create an old-fashioned 'street-lamp' effect at the end of a bridge or the entryway to your home. Mixing solar lamps with low voltage lights will offer you an endless number of lighting effects so your glowing garden is just as enticing at night as it is in the day. It will also be safer for foot-traffic and security. Solar lights are the easiest of all night lighting to install, and, if after a few years yours start to look dull, you only have to change the batteries to shed new light on your garden!
By adding lighting to your garden, your landscape becomes a magical view out your window in the dark and turns the outdoor garden into a useable space at night. Lighting the garden makes outdoor living a real asset to our homes, especially during summer nights when cooling temperatures in Southern California make cooking, entertaining and relaxing outdoors at night wonderfully inviting. Lighting also discourages unwanted visitors. Especially in these economic times when most people are not planning to sell their homes for profit any time soon, this is a great time to make your home as comfortable and beautiful as possible while riding out the rough housing market. Illuminating your garden can help raise your spirits and light up the quality of your home life in your landscape!
Light up your landscape with low voltage lighting
Plant an umbrella in the garden
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