Isn’t it amazing? You decide you want to do something to improve your home like install new garden lights, and all of a sudden you are overwhelmed with options and questions and costs and it becomes a garden lighting nightmare! Well, maybe this hasn’t happened to you, but it seems to happen to me all too often in one way, shape or form. With my most recent project of adding lights to our garden, I found myself researching page upon page of questions, answers, suggestions and warnings. “Use solar garden lights”, “What ever you do, don’t bother with a solar garden light set up”, “Use low voltage outdoor lights”, “I’m having trouble wiring my low voltage outdoor lights”… and it goes on and on.

And so far I’ve only touched on the kind of light to use. What about WHERE and HOW to place them? That, of course, is a more difficult question to answer when you consider everyone has their own unique garden set up, not to mention tastes and preferences. However, there were still countless opinions to try to sift through from hanging lights to lining walkways to placing the garden lights underneath flowers and plants to give them a radiant look.

Another thing that was not in short supply was images of different garden lighting set ups. Of course many of these photos were shot by professional photographers who can make even the most mundane set up look magical. Nonetheless, it’s pretty obvious to see that when properly thought out and implemented, garden lights can completely transform your garden. It’s can be a totally new and different place once the sun goes down, with cozy corners, romantic recesses and all kinds of other new and interesting feelings.

The big question though is this. Without spending a bunch of money on a professional designer (out of the question), and wanting to make sure I don’t waste money by setting things up in a way that doesn’t quite ‘work’, how can I confidently go about choosing the best option for my particular garden lighting?

Well, all that digging around on the internet led to a really great discovery that is brilliant (no pun intended). Without spending much money and only a little time, I found out how to create very mobile temporary garden lights that I could move here, there and everywhere so that I could get a good feel for what works best. Plus, once I get everything dialed in for cheap, I already know a second use for my solution that I will share with you at the end of this article.

So who would have thought the answer to my perplexion (I think I just made that word up!) would be found on a site called www.EvilMadScientist.com? (the specific article can be found here: http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/lantern). These guys are amazing, but I’ll leave it to you to go check it out if you’re interested. For now I’m just going to share the cool solution I found there.

Basically, we’re going to create portable, battery powered LED garden lights that you can easily pick up and place, move, or hang where ever you want so you get a good feel for having a light in that particular place.

You’re going to take a small (and inexpensive) LED light, a small (and inexpensive) lithium coin battery, a mason jar (or really any other kind of container would work just as well), and some electrical tape. You can probably find all the stuff you need at your local Radio Shack, though you’ll probably save money if you order it on line. By shopping online you should be able to get the LED and the batteries for well under $1 each per pair (meaning you might buy 10 LEDs for $5 and 10 batteries for $5).

The Evil Mad Scientists do a great job of walking you through how to put these things together, complete with photos. In a nutshell though, you’re simply going to tape the LED light to the lithium coin battery which will turn the light on. You then drop the light into your masonry jar (or whatever you’re using; beer bottle, opaque Tupperware container… whatever). And PRESTO! You have yourself a garden light!

The beauty of this set up is that LED lights use so little energy that even if you just leave them on permanently, the battery will probably last for a good week or more of 24 hours a day light. More than enough time to position and reposition your lighting arrangements to your hearts content. Plus, you can always un-tape one side of the light to “turn it off” and prolong the useful life (like if you wanted to have people over for their input, or else maybe even to use for a party before you get everything permanently set up).

Speaking of parties and other uses… now I can’t wait for the holidays because I’m going to use this idea to create luminarias! As a kid I remember filling the brown paper bags with sand and dropping the small tea-light candle inside and then lining the walkway for my parents’ holiday party. BUT… despite the warm, inviting glow and festive feeling they put out, even as a kid I thought it was kind of sketchy having a candle burning inside a paper bag (fortunately nothing ever caught fire). Now, using this technique, I’ll be able to recreate the look and feel of the glowing paper sacks, but with zero risk of fire. I love it!

So going back to your garden lighting situation; using this ‘temporary’ technique will allow you to get a really good sense of where and how you want to get things set up. From there, you can start to shop around for the final product such as Kichler, Quoizel or Sea Gull Outdoor Lighting. When you’re spending money on quality goods like these, you want to feel certain that you’re going to truly love where and how you set them up. Doing an inexpensive garden lights ‘dummy run’ as described above will allow you to do just that, and you’ll be sure to love your garden lighting for years to come.