Harness Sun Energy With Solar Powered Garden Lighting

by Keith Markensen

Gardening is an American pastime, and interest in it is growing rapidly. People are recognizing how much nice plants and landscaping will help the appearance of their home. It also is an enjoyable hobby to cultivate plants from seed to maturity in your own backyard garden. Adding decorative touches like stepping stones, fountains, or solar garden lighting can show your personal style.

With solar lighting in your garden, you can light a path, or highlight certain plants or features. The best part about it is that it does not need any external power. No chords or anything at all. Just like your plants, it will use the sun’s energy to power itself.

A solar garden light is made up of a plastic shell with a solar cell inside. It also has a nickel and cadmium battery, a control board, an LED light source, and a photo resistor.

The sun charges the battery, which powers the solar cell. The control board and the light itself is powered by these. At night, the battery can’t charge since the sunlight is gone, so the photo resistor turns on the LED. The LED can run for about 15 hours on a charged battery.

Outdoor electrical wiring can be a hassle to install, especially if your garden is not right next to your home. The solar lighting can easily fix that. It will cost more at first to install the solar lighting, but the money that will be saved in electric bills will more than make up for it.

You can chose the style, shape, and color of the lighting based upon your personal taste and the style of the rest of your garden. Plastic dome lighting is common, for example. This type is used most often for pathways or borders. There are spikes on the bottom so you can simply stick the lights into the ground.

Other shapes that are available include tubes, discs, lanterns, tiki torches, and globes. Besides putting them in the ground, you can mount some on your home or deck, or hang them on poles, etc. The number of options is amazing.

Light can add a really special quality to your garden, especially if you use the area to entertain friends and family in the evenings.

In addition to working well and looking great, the landscape solar garden lights are good for the environment and your electricity bill. The lights are a great investment that will last.

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