Garden lights offer the ability to illuminate your garden and garden decor in an almost magical way, creating faux shadows, elegant backdrops, all the while highlighting the best parts of the garden for all to see.

Beyond this wonderful use of garden lighting, there are actually a few practical reasons to consider using them, even if you aren’t the garden type or consider yourself artistically inclined to set up such a thing.

What practical reasons am I talking about?

Safety! I mean this in two ways.

First, safety in the sense of providing light in areas where it might be dangerous or risky to move about if there were no light. This includes obviously the garden but also areas where garden lighting accessories or outdoor lighting accessories have become extremely useful; namely, stair lighting! Attaching solar powered stair lights is a brilliant idea. And even just having walkways and pathways in the yard lit up is going to make it easier and safer to walk around.

The other type of safety that garden lights provide is a deterent for theft and burglary. Simply put, if your yard and things are lit up then you are less likely to find yourself the victim of a thief, who would just as well find it easier to move on to the next house that is shieled in darkness. Of course, garden lighting is not a security plan in and of itself, but knowing that it acts a potential deterent is a nice perk of a good lighting set up.

Another practical use of outdoor and garden lights is just so one can see in order to do other things when it’s dark. This sounds silly, but I’m talking about things like hosting outdoor parties, reading outside, even being able to see little things such as where the keyhole is when you come in and you’re trying to get inside. (This could be lit up by a garden in the front yard.)

So while garden lights of course offer the benefits of making for a beautiful garden set up, you also get the perks of having an outdoor area that’s safer for kids and adults alike to move about and see where they’re going, a home that’s not as easy as a target for burglary than it would be without the lights, and then the practical aspect of having lights which offers you the chance to entertain outdoors at night or just relax and read a book in the garden.

The decision to use standard garden lights or solar garden lights comes down to everyones individual situation, skill set, and budget. Here are some points to keep in mind when sizing up your options between using solar garden lights, or standard garden lights (those that require a power source via cable.)

Solar Garden Lights are a lot easier to get set up. Why? Because there’s no cables to deal with, that’s why! All it takes is purchasing them and then placing them in the garden, taking care to make sure the solar panels (either built into the lights or running attached with a small cord) are placed in such a way to capture direct sunlight. That is all it’s going to take to power the lights, and this means it’s very easy for everyone involved.

Standard Garden Lights are harder to set up. You could run a cable on top of the ground, but that would look ridiculous. Instead, you’ll need to properly bury or at least strategically conceal the power cables. This means digging and manuevering. It might also mean some kind of electrical skills as you tweak the light set up for your garden. What this offers in trade is the ability to have a lot more control over where the lights are placed, since the cables can be routed anywhere under the ground, and no light source is not in any way related to being exposed to the sun to capture solar energy.

Another factor between these two options is the price and cost of each type of lighting. Solar garden lights cost more than standard garden lights. However, the big selling point here is that you will spend zero dollars powering them. Year after year will pass and you will have garden lights on, and will not spend a penny on keeping them on. But at the same time, the cost of standard garden lights is considerably less than that of their solar counterparts. The budget may demand a less expensive choice to start with.

One more factor is this question you may want to ask yourself: How important is it to you to use energy efficient, green lighting?

Gardeners work with the earth, and many extend their respect for the plants and trees and the air and the grass by their work in the garden. For them, it only makes sense to use solar powered garden lights, as this plays a small but important role in reducing ones overall footprint. This is something to think about it for anyone who uses garden lighting.