How to light your garden this autumn

Adding lighting to your garden gives it an extra dimension and lets you enjoy it for longer, whether sitting outside on a summer night or admiring the view from a cosy armchair indoors in winter. Solar lights are a very simple and effective way to light your garden. They use the sun’s energy to charge batteries and power LEDs (light-emitting diodes) to provide light at night. There’s no need for an electrician to install them, and you can easily move them around to try out different effects. Lighting adds an extra dimension to your garden, and with solar lights, you can create your own flexible lighting designs! 

Designing a garden lighting plan

Before placing your lights, take a walk around your garden and view it from inside your house. Decide which features you want to light – perhaps a seating area, pathways, an attractive statue or a tree. Also, think about what you want to keep unlit – creating shadows with garden lighting can help to hide any less attractive parts of the garden at night, such as the compost heap or the recycling bins!

Types of solar lighting

Use different types of light to create the effects you want in your garden. Here are a few of the most common types of light available:

• Path lights focus light downwards and can be used to line the edge of a path or indicate the boundary of a patio.

• Spotlights produce a narrow beam of light and are ideal for lighting a focal point like a statue, decorative pot or tree. Choose a spotlight that can be adjusted so that you can angle it to get the best effect. Spotlights tend to use more power than other lights.

• Accent lights cast a glow over a wide space and are ideal for adding atmosphere to a seating area. They produce a lower light level than spotlights but will stay on for longer as they use less power.

• Strings of fairy lights are great for draping along a fence or festooning around a seating area, adding sparkle and creating a festive holiday feel. 

Tips for lighting your garden

There’s no end to the effects you can achieve with garden lighting, and here are a few to experiment with.

• A lit tree or a statue in the middle of a dark space can look out of context as if it is just hanging there. To avoid this, use accent lights to gradually lead your eye to the main focal point.

• Placing spotlights on either side of a garden feature is a very effective way to turn it into a focal point.

• Shadows are an essential element of garden lighting. An angled spotlight placed at the base of a statue or tree can create a fascinating shadow on a nearby wall.

• Turn a tree into a piece of living sculpture by winding strings of fairy lights around the branches to highlight its shape.

Our centre has a fantastic range of garden lighting systems, so come in and be inspired!