How much lighting should I have in my garden?

There really isn’t a correct answer to this question, because there are so many variables at play! It depends on the size of your garden, how much space you can, or want to actively use (as opposed to how much is taken up with plants) and the way in which you are planning to use your garden – and of course, how big your budget is. Thinking about all these questions will help you to plan carefully, and make sure you have the right garden lighting solutions. 

Lighting experts suggest having a range of ambient lighting (general lighting that can fill a space with light) as well as having task lighting available, which provides lighting for specific tasks. In many gardens, feature lighting can be used to great effect too. Fixtures such as spot lights can be a great addition, and can help to draw attention to features you want to show off. Features that you might want to light up include architectural features of your home, particularly beautiful trees and bushes, or statues, for example. 

Where should I add lighting in my garden?

There are so many beautiful options when it comes to adding lighting to your garden, and where to add it depends on factors like how big your garden is, whether you want to use lighting to mark out different zones in your garden for different uses, and more. However, you can get creative – because (as we’ve already said!) there is no one-size-suits-all solution to add outdoor lighting to your garden. 

Just to get you started though, here are some great ideas for places to think about adding lighting to your garden: 

• Fairy lighting wound around the edges of al fresco dining areas to add a soft ambience to the area

• Festoon lighting strung along pergolas and gazebos to provide a cheerful, upbeat effect

• Lanterns placed strategically around barbecues and fire pits to give a campfire vibe

• Stake lights running along the full length of the garden 

• Flood lights that can completely light up water features such as ponds, hot tubs, and swimming pools

• Lamp posts near driveways and garden gates

• Rope lighting woven through fences, bushes, and foliage to give off a pretty glow 

You’ll also need to consider how you want each type of lighting that you install in your garden to operate. Do you want your lighting to switch itself on at sunset and then to switch itself off at sunrise? Do you want to be able to alter the brightness of the lighting that you have available, either with a dimmer switch, or by being able to layer the amount of lighting you have available? This will influence the type of lighting that you decide to buy.

When you’ve planned out your space and you know how you’re going to use it, then it is time to consider your budget, and what type of power you’re going to use for your lighting. 

What budget do I need for outdoor lighting?

The size of your budget is dependent on many things, from the size of your garden, the amount of lighting that you want to add, as well as the type of light fittings that you want to buy – as well as how much you have available to spend. Outdoor lighting can be incredibly affordable, from just a few pounds for basic flood lights and solar string lighting, right through to hundreds (and even thousands) of pounds. Where you set your budget for your garden lighting is entirely up to you. 

Outdoor lighting technology

The type of lighting that you decide to use in your garden will depend on a number of variables, but there are three main types to be aware of: mains powered, battery powered, and solar powered. 

If you’re planning to install your garden lighting permanently, and your garden is a bigger space that requires higher powered lighting, then you’re more likely to be looking at mains powered garden lighting options. 

If you’re unable to make permanent changes such as drilling holes to access power (in situations where the home is rented), then you’ll be more likely to be looking at temporary options that are powered by battery, or that are solar powered. 

If you’re conscious about the environmental impact of your garden lighting, then you’re most likely to be looking at solar powered garden lighting. 

Mains power 

Having power in your garden that you can access is something of a luxury – and so if you do have access to it, you’re likely to find most types of lighting with mains powered options. Particularly where you’re lighting a large space, it is still well worth looking for energy saving LED garden lighting, and complementing your mains powered garden lighting with solar powered options, to keep the impact on the environment (and your electricity bill, of course!) lower. 

Solar power 

The technology behind solar powered lighting has come a long way in recent years, and in many cases, solar powered garden lighting can be just as effective as mains or battery powered options. As the name suggests, the solar panel collects energy from the sun during daylight hours and stores it in a battery, and then as daylight fades to a certain level, part of the panel triggers the lights to come on, using the power that has been stored in the battery. 

Solar powered lighting is not just convenient – because you won’t need to remember to plug the lights in, or find new batteries for them – it is better for the planet too. And because they tend to use more energy efficient LEDs, there are models and styles to suit every type of garden, from ground and deck lighting to decorative string lights, wall lights and flood lighting.

Battery power 

There are plenty of battery powered garden lighting options, with many models now featuring rechargeable batteries that are installed and can be recharged via USB. Because battery operated lighting models tend to be smaller, they are often string lights, or smaller feature lamps that are designed for use on patios and on tables. When you’re considering battery powered lighting options, be sure to think about how often you want to have to replace batteries – solar powered models may be a much better option, both in terms of convenience, the financial cost of replacing batteries, and the impact on the environment. 

Important notes about garden lighting

Safety first

Particularly if you’re planning to have your garden lighting in place permanently (or at least, permanently until the end of the summer) you’ll need to check that they are truly up to the job. You don’t want to spend money on lights and find they’re not waterproof, particularly since the Great British summer isn’t complete without the odd shower or two! More importantly than considering whether you’re going to waste your money if they get wet though, is ensuring that they are going to be safe in your garden. When you’re choosing lighting fixtures for your garden, ensure that you look for at products that are rated at least IP43, which will ensure that they are able to withstand rain and sprayed water from those summer water fights. If your garden is a more active space – perhaps children with toys running around – it is a good idea to look for IP44 rated garden lighting options, which will withstand the rain, but also solid objects that have a diameter, or thickness of more than 1mm. 

Where you’re installing lighting in order to increase the security of your garden, you’re likely to be looking for flood lighting that helps deter intruders, as well as helping your garden to be filled with light when you’re using it. Security flood lights have PIR sensors which means that they’re triggered to come on automatically as soon as the infrared beam is broken. Flood lighting isn’t a complete solution in keeping out burglars that are particularly determined, but it will certainly help to discourage any that might be scoping your home out on the off-chance. 

Consider your neighbours 

As you decide which garden lighting is right for you, but you’ll also need to consider whether your newly installed lighting will have an impact on your neighbours. If, when installed, your garden lighting shines directly into a neighbour’s window, or otherwise invades their privacy, then you may find that it becomes a problem. To remain on good terms with those living closest to you, be sure to speak with them before you buy, and install your outdoor lighting considerately.

Coastal homes need specialist lighting models

Owners of properties that are based near the coast (and even within around four miles of the sea) should remember that salt exposure will impact on the longevity of outdoor lighting. With that in mind, it is well worth seeking out specially made lighting that is designed for coastal areas, particularly if you’re going to be spending a significant amount on your new lighting. There are a number of specialist lighting companies that provide stylish outdoor lighting solutions made from copper, galvanised steel or polycarbonate materials that are naturally protected from salt corrosion. Although this sounds like it could be expensive, there are very affordable options available, so don’t be put off. 

Permanent garden lighting 

If you have access to mains power for your garden lighting, then chances are you’ll be gravitating towards installing your lighting solutions permanently. Where that is the case, as we’ve already suggested – you have almost all the options that you could ever want. 

Flood lights 

Perhaps the most practical of all the different types of garden lighting, flood lights tend to be more functional than beautiful. They’re most often used for security purposes, but they can be used exactly how you need them. If you need them to come on when someone is nearby, then you’ll be looking for passive infra-red (PIR) options, and if you need the flood light to go on automatically, and stay on throughout the night, there are options for that too. 

Although flood lighting is incredibly powerful, you don’t have to use flood lights for solely practical purposes. There are some incredible effects to be achieved by directing them towards certain areas of your garden, or towards a garden feature that you particularly love. There are smaller, directional flood lights on stakes that are really easy to add to your garden that are perfect for this type of use. 

These Outdoor Halogen Home Security Flood lights comes in a pack of two, with energy saving LED bulbs supplied, and are wall mountable. They’re long-lasting too, with up to 15,000 hours usage at an incredibly affordable price.

Deck and ground lights

Having lighting added into the ground is a great way to make your paths, decking and driveways safer – they’re particularly great where there’s a drop that could cause injury like a twisted ankle, should someone venture too far. Depending on what you need and how you want the lighting to look, deck and ground lights can be easy to install – some models have stakes attached, so they can be pushed into the ground – and they can be found in a range of colours too. 

Although many are traditionally round, you can find models that are different shapes, and that give off more modern, muted effects, as opposed to shining brightly directly upwards.

In most cases, ground lights are suitable for walking on, but they might not be strong enough to be driven over, particularly for bigger vehicles. Further safety consideration when you’re adding deck and ground lights, is to be sure that you get the best safety rating for your needs – if the area is prone to flooding, look for higher IP ratings, to ensure the lights you have chosen can withstand submersion. 

Wall lights  

Wall lights are a perfect addition to gardens, especially where you need functional, but stylish lighting. They’re perfect for near entrances, making it safer for your family to come and go during darkness, but they can work incredibly well to provide ambient light on patios too. 

When you’re searching for wall lights, you’ll find options that range from very classic and traditional in style – such as lanterns – through to modern and contemporary ‘up and down’ styles, so you can find the style that suits your taste, and your house, the best. 

Wall lighting can be found in both mains powered, and solar powered options, meaning that you can minimise your environmental impact and keep your electricity bill down too. 

Lanterns

Lanterns are made from glass panels and have metal frames, and just like wall lighting, you can find very traditional options – the type that spring to mind when the word lantern is uttered – through to incredibly sleek modern styles that feature frosted glass and different types of metal finishes. 

Lanterns can be used in many different ways throughout the garden, from adding battery powered candle LEDs to provide low-level atmospheric light on decking, to being used on outdoor dining tables, through to being hung from walls and fences, or at the top of lamp posts. 

Once installed, lanterns that have clear glass surrounds can be further enhanced by adding light bulbs that have decorative filaments in them, to give a more traditional, or more modern effect. These look great, and add atmosphere in intimate al fresco dining areas. 

Lamp posts

While many of us associate lamp posts with a more traditional look and feel, there are some fantastic contemporary style lamp posts that suit more modern homes and gardens. Lamp posts can look fantastic at the entrance to driveways, and throughout bigger gardens, to cast light on pathways and garden features. Like with other types of lighting, there are some fantastic solar options available, and there are many that feature sensors to trigger the light to come on as soon as darkness falls. 

When you’re choosing lamp posts, you’ll need to think about the height at which you want it to stand – if you need it to rise above a wall, or it is to be installed near a tree, then you’ll need to do some careful measuring before you place your order. However, there are height adjustable models, which allow you to get the perfect height.

Water feature lighting

When you’ve installed a water feature – be it a pond, a swimming pool, or a hot tub – lighting it up means that you can appreciate, and use it through the darker hours, and keep your family safe too. Even small ponds can present a hazard in the darkness, and the best way to avoid accidentally ending up in the water fully clothed is to add lighting. There are two main ways to keep your family and visitors safe – either lighting around the area, and adding lighting under the water. 

If you’re lighting around the edges of your garden water feature at a low level, then you can add in-ground lighting or stake lights to highlight the area, or of course, if your water feature is bigger (such as a pool you can swim in) then you can use any of the other lighting solutions. We love the look of festoon lighting around a swimming pool, but flood lights with infrared beams are practical solutions to completely fill the area with light when someone goes too close. As we’ve already mentioned, be sure that your lighting is at least IP44 rated, so that if there are splashes that are a bit more tidal wave than splash, safety is covered. 

In-pond lighting is relatively easy to find todays, with kits containing multiple spotlights and an underwater sensor that automatically triggers the lights to come on at dusk and to go off at dawn for under £200. These pond lights tend to use LEDs, and they are available in a range of colours. With lighting that is to be completely submerged, look for IP68 rated lighting solutions. 

Temporary and removable garden lighting 

Investing in permanent lighting may not make sense if you’re in rented accommodation, or you’re not planning to stay in your current home permanently, but that doesn’t mean that you should miss out on great summer evenings! There are some fantastic temporary outdoor lighting solutions that allow you to make use of your garden just as well as permanent solutions. And should your local area not be quite as secure as you’d like, then temporary lighting solutions mean that you can keep them safe by bringing them indoors at the end of the evening.                                                                                                                             

Inside-out lighting

In response to the need for extra space in homes because of the COVID-19 pandemic, designers are creating spaces in gardens at the moment that means it can be used as an additional room in fair weather. Whether you have a patio, a conservatory, or a pergola to create a space, having the right type of lighting means you’ll be able to use that space for hours after darkness falls. 

Many lighting specialists have outdoor lighting options such as table lamps, ceiling pendants and chandeliers that are either solar powered, or battery powered. These can work brilliantly to create cosy spaces to curl up in with a book, to act as additional (if temporary!) work space, or to simply get outside and enjoy a cold beverage. 

Lanterns

Although lanterns can be permanent fixtures on the side of your home and in your garden, there are some fantastic portable options. This pagoda lantern with 24 LEDs looks fantastic, and can be used wherever you are in your garden. We’d add it to patio dining areas, in cosy corners, or even as a stylish option when camping.

We love this Window Lantern with LED Candle, which has a timer that can be set for six hours on, and 18 hours off, but where the budget is tight, scour thrift stores and charity shops for vintage lanterns (or look for packs of lanterns online) to hold tea light candles – or the safer LED versions – to create ambience on patios. 

Stake lights

Cheap solar powered stake lights became ubiquitous in UK gardens for a while – and because they were available from so many discount retailers, many people bought them. Unfortunately, many people found they weren’t very resilient, and many of them ended up being discarded, with those that genuinely wanted garden lighting looking at other options. 

Today, there are some much more robust stake light designs available in a range of styles, from stake spotlights that can be used to light up garden features, to decorative stake lanterns in designs that look like fireworks. 

Stake lights are great for lining paths and borders, helping to mark out where to walk, and because they are so simple to install – you just push them into the ground – they are great for providing lighting quickly and easily. They can be solar powered, but if the area that you’re lighting isn’t exposed to that much sun, then you can find options that are mains powered too. 

String lights 

String lights come in three main types. There are fairy lights, which are the tiny, twinkly lights that are commonly seen at Christmas; festoon lights, which are similar to fairy lights except they are much bigger; and there are rope lights, which technically aren’t string lighting, but they’re close enough to mention here! 

String lights are available in many different colours and combinations, with bright white and warm white being common in garden décor, and strings of multicoloured bulbs often being used for festivities. If you’re planning for your string lights to be left outside overnight, be sure that whichever ones you buy are rated IP43 or IP44 – you never know when an overnight shower might crop up, and you won’t need to worry about taking them down and putting them away at the end of a great evening. 

Fairy lights 

If you’re only planning for your string lighting to be up temporarily, then fairy lights are a good option. They aren’t heavy, and can be installed quickly – in many cases, they can simply be wrapped around fences, pergolas and woven through plant foliage. If you’re adding fairy lights with the intention of them being in place more permanently, then hooks or pins are simple to add, or cable ties or string can keep them in place. 

Fairy lights tend to be incredibly low cost, with strings starting at just a few pounds. Not only are they low cost, but they are also really efficient, which means even if you choose battery powered fairy lights, they’re inexpensive to run. Today’s models tend to use energy efficient LEDs, which means that they don’t take much power at all – and so you can choose from mains powered, battery powered, or solar powered options, with similar effects.

There’s a risk with fairy lights (particularly when they’re installed in certain ways, such as when they’re strung all around a tree) that they look too much like you’ve raided the Christmas decorations box. While that is perfect for summer celebrations, barbecues, and parties, if you’re using fairy lights to contribute to the ambient lighting in your garden, you might not want the Christmassy feel. In this case, you might find cool toned white fairy lights suit your needs better, rather than multicoloured ones, but if you want a little colour without the Christmas effect, then there are some fantastic multicoloured fairy lights in pastel shades. You can also find strings of fairy lights that are a single colour – blues are great, but pink, or purple ones can look fantastic too. 

If you frequently have children in your garden, and you have a playhouse that has power to it, you might grab these Hello Kitty string lights to add a playful ambiance – although bear in mind they are intended for indoor use, and so they’ll need bringing in once the day is over. 

The brilliant thing about battery powered, and solar powered fairy lights is that they don’t simply have to be strung around the garden – there are so many other ways to use them! We love searching online for ideas for new and interesting ways to use them. Some of our favourites uses for fairy lights include adding them to jars and bottles to make impromptu lamps, stringing them along a wall to create a backdrop for a photo gallery, and using them as props for some incredibly striking photos.  

Festoon lighting 

As we’ve already mentioned, festoons are a similar type of string lighting to fairy lights, but they have much bigger bulbs fitted, and they can have a much bigger impact. Bulbs for festoon lighting were traditionally made from glass, and they were expensive to run because they needed a lot of power. That meant that they weren’t often used in home settings – but as with other lighting options, today’s festoon lights make use of those super-efficient LEDs. That means that just as with fairy lights, you can find festoon lighting in mains powered, battery powered, and solar power styles. 

Festoon lighting can look wonderful in bigger spaces, and where you need more lighting than just a few fairy lights can provide. We’ve seen some fantastic effects achieved by stringing festoons around patios and gazebos to create really bright dining spaces, and they can look great when hung above paths and swimming areas.  

Rope lights

Fairy lights and festoon lighting tend to sell more, but rope lights can be an alternative that makes more sense for families with small children. Since the lights are completely contained within the rope, there is less chance of small fingers fiddling, and they are able to withstand slightly more boisterous play, so they’re better options where balls and other garden toys might come into contact with them. These 20 metre Warm White Rope Lights make a great buy for wrapping around tree trunks and weaving through fence posts.

Decorative and novelty lights

To add to the beauty and ambience to your garden, there are some incredible lighting options that are more decorative than functional. Decorative lighting options aren’t going to increase the lighting in your space by a huge amount, but they definitely will look pretty! There are absolutely loads of different decorative, and novelty lighting options, but here are just a few ideas to whet your appetite: 

• This topiary ball with purple flowers has ultra-bright LEDs and is solar powered, so can be used anywhere that is exposed to the sun each day. It looks fantastic hanging at either side of doorways, or added to large planter pots for a manicured bush effect – this metallic finish square plastic planter is available in a range of colours – we think the pink, silver or blue would look fabulous.  

• If you’ve created an oriental space in your garden with a pergola and covered seating area, then we love this Cherry Blossom Bonsai Style Tree Lamp to add to the ambience. It isn’t specifically designed for outdoor use, but the tree lamp is battery powered, so you can place it anywhere – just remember to bring it in when you’re heading in for the night.

• When hosting garden parties, this Light Up Peg Board makes a great addition by the entrance to the festivities – whether you’re encouraging ‘eat, drink and be merry’, providing instructions, or simply welcoming guests. 

• Where space is an issue, then lighting can be added by using planters that feature the lighting inside them. These can be great alternatives to stake lighting, or lighting to draw attention to the entrance to a home. 

Essential garden accessories for a great summer

When you’re planning your garden lighting, don’t forget about the other accessories that can help you to enjoy summer evenings in your garden – it isn’t just about the plants and trees! We recommend a Bluetooth wireless portable and rechargeable speaker to keep the party going without the need for power, a fire pit and blankets to keep the chill off on those cooler nights, and of course, great seating arrangements so that you can enjoy the summer evenings in comfort.

Closing thoughts 

There are so many ways that you can add lighting to your garden, there really is something for every budget, size of garden and for however you want to use your garden. Where it is possible, consider the environment, and opt for solar powered options, or mains powered lighting – and if battery powered is the only option, don’t forget to order rechargeable ones. All that is left for us to say is that we hope you have a great summer!