How is this accomplished?

Easy.

You can do this by using garden lights.

There are many styles, sizes, and even voltage options when choosing the lighting for the garden area. Many opt for low voltage light in their garden because they provide a dim light source and use less electricity, as well as many more advantages.

In fact, let’s look at just this one type of lighting and identify the advantages it has for use in our gardens.

The Advantages of Using Low Voltage Lights for the Garden Over Other Types of Lights

There are advantages to using low voltage lights as opposed to solar powered garden lights.

Both will illuminate a garden area with dim light, but solar powered lights give off a blue hue, which some people do not particularly care for.

In addition, solar powered lights require no digging and burying of wires, whereas electric lighting will require doing so, or perhaps even calling in an electrician for installation. They also cannot be turned off on as electric lighting can.

With the lower voltage option for lighting, you will be using a light source that can be controlled with a switch.

Using less voltage with garden lighting will use less energy and save you on your electric bill. You can feel better about having them on and leaving them on more often since they will not use up as much electricity.

You can also be creative with all of the low-voltage garden lights available today. Many manufactures realize that homeowners want to make investments in their landscape lighting, but also want to conserve energy use; therefore, they are producing many different styles so that you have many options. You can find low voltage lighting in any style that you wish to incorporate into your garden. You can choose items such as sidewalk lights, post lanterns, directional spot lighting, and much more. You will quickly realize that using this style of lights in your garden was the right decision!

The fuel-powered lights have small cylinders to contain oil or gas. They need refilling everyday and emit a flickering flame. The solar products are eco friendly and are easily installed. They can be obtained in various designs. The electric ones are difficult to install because they require wiring. However, once set up, they are easy to use. Some more varieties like low voltage, led, lantern, flood and spotlights form sub categories under the aforementioned broad sections.

You can use different illumination techniques for your garden. You can either set them on the decks or choose to go with a landscape effect. You can use lampposts, which will lend a touch of the ancient charm. Use designer fixtures and lanterns for hanging them to provide illumination for a large area. Fixtures are available in different shapes and sizes. If you are looking to illuminate the garden path, rope bulbs are fabulous. They add to the beauty of your backyard and also make the area look large. The recessed, Spike Mountain, tree, bollard and step, patio, underwater, column, pedestal, pond and novelty arrangements have also become popular.

Some of the best brands in the business include Hunza, PLM LED Lights, Konstsmide, Moonrays, Malibu and Aurora Glow. The garden lights manufactured by these companies are world class. Apart from their primary product, they also manufacture accessories as well as different products for illumination effects. You will get a huge variety of items along with plans on different kinds of arrangements, ranging from classic to basic, from PIR to columns and plant pots.

With so many options on the table, where do you start? Well, that’s a good question. Let’s hold on to it for a minute while we take a look at some of the more popular types of garden and outdoor lights for  home use.

Ground Stakes. These are lights that mount into the ground. Most commonly used in and around specific plants you want to light up as well as being used to light up pathways with lights that are not easily movable. These are also commonly solar powered.

Hanging Lights. Hanging lights – and this usually means solar hanging lights – are awesome for lighting up walkways and pathways. They also add a very classy look to youre garden!

Stair Lights. For the back deck or front porch at night, stairs can be a risky venture. That’s what stair lights were invented for – to light those stairs up so you don’t have to worry about where you’re stepping! Again, solar powered stair lights are popular for this purpose as you don’t have to mess with any wiring!

Spot Lights and Flood Lights. These types of lights are used to cast a wide light over a whole area. Flood lights are more wide whereas spot lights offer a more narrow pinpoint to focus on. As with most types of outdoor lighting made these days, there are both conventional and solar powered spot and flood lights. Because of the high amount of light caste from these units, many people use standard lights over solar light.

Additionally, beyond all these types of fantastic garden and outdoor lights listed above, there are many other types of outdoor or garden lights that we can qualify under the general or misc. category of lighting. Take a look at any home or garden shop and you will see what we mean. Depending on your garden set up, these misc. types of lights could offer the lighting you are looking for to get your garden just right!

If you just want to get your feet wet – or shall I say, if you just want to get your thumb a little green, and you’re just getting started with gardening and lights and how it all works, take a look at what’s called an Aerogarden. An Aerogarden is a self-contained indoor gardening unit that also comes with it’s own lighting system. Observing how these units function could be a great start in understanding the basics of how to work with plants and lighting systems to promote healthy plants and gardens!

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.

How exactly do solar garden lights work their magic? Without getting into any technical details, it’s simple: they are equipped with small solar panels. When the sun is shining, these solar panels are able to capture a tiny, tiny fraction of the energy emitted. Then, this energy is re-purposed into powering the equipped lights. (FYI, the solar cells themselves are usually made up of either pure silicon, amorphous silicon, or crystalline silicon. For more information on the technical set up of a solar powered light, check out this post from How Stuff Works.)

This means that you only get lights from a solared powered garden light if there’s been enough sun during the day for the solar panels to capture. The specifics vary from model to model, depending on how many solar panels are used and how efficient they are, but it generally works so that if it’s sunny for much of the day, the solar garden lights will keep light until late at night, and even through the night. Some solar powered garden lights won’t last as long though, and may give you a return of about half – for instance, 8 hours of sunlight will give you 4 hours of solar powered garden light. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but this means that the garden will be lit up all the way up to most peoples bedtimes.

Like any garden or home accessory, solar garden lights come in a wide variety of designs. Many are self contained, meaning the solar panel and the light are all together in a compact unit. Others attach to a solar panel that can be placed a few feet away. These types of units are ideal for a set up in which the lights need to be placed in such a way that direct sunlight wouldn’t hit them, but with the attached panel running a few feet away, you’re still able to capture solar energy. Prices vary quite a bit, but expecting to pay around $100 for a solar garden lights set from a standard home improvement store is probably about right for most people getting started with solar garden lights.

But are you really saving money by buying the cheapest lights?

As you know, there is more to it than this…

Consider that many solar powered garden lights come equipped with the technology to be self-sustaining, at least so long as the sun lasts, capturing the energy of the sun freely and using it to remain powered. And being that the sun is already about 4.5 billion years old at this point (give or take a few years), scientists estimate it’s nearly half way through it’s life cycle. So that means you’ve got up to another 4-5 billions year of getting free energy from the sun for your garden lights. Not a bad deal!

Now here’s where the cost saving fun statistics come into play:

If you estimate that each year you save $120 off your electrical bill (a conservative estimate) by powering all your garden lights via solar power, you stand to save an estimated $480 Billion to $600 Billion dollars over the course of the lifetime of the sun. That’s enough for another government bailout package!

ACTUALLY, I’m just seeing if you’re paying attention. If you are, then let’s get into the real specifics of the cost saving scenario that solar lights offer us.

If you estimate that your solar garden lights will last 10 years, and each month they save you $10 off your standard power bill, that’s $120 that stays in your pocket every year because of the one time investment you made into solar powered lights.

Over the 10 year lifespan of these products, that’s $1200 that you otherwise would have spent on powering standard lights and paying the electrical company for the priviledge to do so.

So considering that while shopping for garden lighting, the $100 or $200 set of high quality solar powered garden lights might set you back a bit over the much cheaper “normal” lighting, in the long run – yes, this sounds cliche, and it’s even a double pun, but nevertheless – it pays to go green!

In sum, solar garden lights are cheaper in the long run. It’s that simple!

A garden pond can be a lot of work, and something else to consider is the health of the fish in regards to the lighting set up used in the garden.

For example, you might be wondering if the garden lights may interfere with the health of the fish? Do lights disturb them? Do they keep them up at night?

Wait, do fish even go to sleep?

To this latter question, sleep is a tricky word in regards to fish, but yes, for all intents and purposes, fish have day/night cycle and it revolves around the lighting they are exposed to.

Ensuring that the lights won’t interfere with the fish is pretty simple. You should first of all not shine any lights directly into the water. This not only wouldn’t benefit the fish, but it also isn’t a very attractive set up for the garden. It’d be better for the lights to illuminate the area. You wouldn’t want any of the lights themselves to be poking out and visible. (See our article “Garden Lights for Beginners” for more information on concealing the source of light and why it’s important.) Secondly, the most important part of having a garden pond with fish and having proper lighting is to put the lights on a timer. Use the timer to control the lights and have them turn off once it gets late, say, around 11 or 12. It would be best if the lights do not simply turn off but instead slowly fade, as this will give time for the fish to adjust to the change in light, mimicking what any natural habitat would provide.

Another aspect of garden lighting and ponds that we should mention is safety. Having cables running into the ground near a body of water poses an inherent risk. It’s important to use common sense and care when working around water and electrical cables. That being said, garden lighting cables are stepped down a notch in their voltage capacity for this very reason.

One way around this problem is to use solar garden lights. This way there are no cables and no electrical currents to worry about. But in order to provide the fish with a consistent day/night schedule, you will need solar garden lighting which is equipped to a timer. Otherwise, they may shine all night!