If you love your garden, you will want to celebrate it to the full no matter what time of day or night it is!

The good news is there’s never been a better time to invest in stylish garden lighting solutions. With so much to choose from, from classic chic to stylish contemporary and from glass and Scandi woods to brass, zinc and copper, here’s my take on how to extend your daytime into night time.

Which ones best suit your garden design personality?

Simple lighting for patios & gardens

There’s something so special about casual lounging outside on a balmy summer’s evening – or a winter’s evening for that matter with patio heating glowing in the corner.

Set the mood with your favourite table-top candles burning within wind-resistant lanterns, along with stand-alone electric or solar-powered lights, all perfect for adding a warm, romantic glow to your evenings.

Large Miners Lantern

Miners’ lanterns might not be anything new but this one should delight all lovers of traditional, vintage-style design.

Standing 26.5cm high, this miners lantern is sizable yet easy to move about, and it gives off plenty of light without blowing out if the weather is breezy.

Made from all-weather, powder-coated steel and glass, it’s ideal for outdoor lighting and you can even hang it up from a hook or tree – a lovely feature for any garden, day or night.

Large Light Lantern

Place this rather novel light lantern on the floor or on the table to light up your evenings and create a focal point.

Perhaps not quite as attractive as the Miners Lantern during daylight hours, this one is, however, a winner at night.

Inside, the light lantern contains a long-lasting string of 20 LED lights so you won’t need to keep on lighting candles.

Cornbury Rechargeable LED Lantern

For a smarter, more modern lantern, this chic USB-charged model sits stylishly on your garden table giving off a cool, diffused glow which lasts between 4 and 12 hours.

Switch it on and dim it using a circular touch-pad on the top so you can adjust the light levels as night falls.

To add to the Cornbury Rechargeable LED Lantern‘s good looks, you’ll have no ugly cables on show.

Weatherproof Festoon Lighting

Set a festive tone to your outdoor entertaining with these wonderful weather-proof lighting festoons.

They’ll look just lovely bordering your garden or hanging amid the trees at your outdoor dinners and parties while the soft white sparkle will catch everyone’s eye.

Integrated garden lighting

Now for some heavy duty stuff. When planning your garden, you might like to work integrated garden lighting into your design. Landscape lighting is a huge subject and quite an art form in itself. In fact, a professional lighting designer is always a good idea if you have a grand scheme in mind.

Carefully chosen lighting can set off your design magnificently by night. I would opt for smart spotlights embedded in walls and pathways and up-lighters to accentuate any beautiful architecture, water features or sculptured plants.

St Ives Wall Mounted Path Light

For pazazz on your pathways, how about these unobtrusive yet visually appealing galvanised steel lights?

These St. Ives wall-mounted path lights are robust and slightly nautical in design.

Being weather-proof, they withstand even the wettest, windiest of conditions.

Messina Square LED Ground Light

Hard-wearing and strikingly contemporary, these Messina square ground lights with textured diffusers will look sensational on your pathways.

Being LED lit, they are cost-effective and exceptionally long lasting with an average life of between 30,000 and 40,000 hours (if you’re not willing to do the maths, that’s up to 4.5 years in the unlikely event of constant use)

Robus Garland SMD Cool White LED Walkover Lights

Add a touch of glitz to your garden decking with these wonderful LED walkover lights.

Boasting a 20,000-hour average lamp life (2.25 years of constant use), these lights are wonderfully economical and low maintenance. They are totally dust and waterproof as well as shockproof and resistant to vibrations. And if all that’s not enough: they are easy to install – what are you waiting for? Also available in blue.

Smooz Ball 40 Colour Changing LED Ground Light

The Smooz Ball is a robust plastic ground light with a 40-colour changing LED bulb which is sure to be the talk of your party. It also adds a wonderfully contemporary (if a little alien spaceship) look to your garden or patio.

There’s never a “dull” moment with this one: you can dim and change its colours using a remote control from up to 4 metres away.

Plug & play lights

If you shy away from heavy-duty landscape lighting solutions for your garden, you’ll be glad to know that there are other ways to go. Plug & Play lighting makes it safe and easy to install lights outdoors; no electrician required!

The system is simple. You have a transformer with a cable and connectors which enable you to add lights wherever you require.

This, of course, means you’ll save money by not having to call in an electrician, provided you have basic DIY skills. Wireless, solar-powered lights are increasingly popular for exactly the same reason.

Many people who have invested time and effort into creating a beautiful garden like the satisfaction of finishing it off themselves with lighting.  Plug & Play is so popular that Lighting Direct devotes a whole section to this kind of lighting in its online store.

Konstsmide Assisi LED Planter

They do say first impressions count and if you’re looking to give a warm welcome along the pathway, the Konstsmide Assisi LED Planter is a great solution.

Bringing both plants and lighting to your entrance or garden as a whole, these dual-function planters are stylish and contemporary.

They are very easy to install, complete with their 6-metre cables and transformers. Sizes come in 40cm and 28cm high to suit your particular outdoor space and design style.

Cole and Bright LED Solar Branch Lights

For something quite unique, these twinkling solar branch lights nestle in foliage and flowerbeds providing a lovely background sparkle.

Being completely solar powered, they’re best placed where daylight is at a maximum to enable them to charge sufficiently.

An inbuilt timer switches them on for 6 hours and off for 18 hours, so you won’t have to do much more than place them prettily!

Little Sun Solar Lamp

Made from UV and weather resistant, recyclable ABS plastic, the Little Sun is both a practical light source and a work of art.

Perfect for outdoors when you have no power source, this light needs 5 hours of charging in the sun to produce 10 hours of soft or 4 hours of bright light.

Hang it around your neck, off a tree or hook, or on the table for safe, convenient light you can take wherever you go.

Eartheasy offers plenty more inspiring and environmentally-friendly light solutions here.

As always, good garden design is integral to showing lighting at its very best.

So don’t even contemplate anything until you’ve attended one of Rachel’s FREE fast-track garden design web classes! Register here.

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