The path from the driveway to the front door is fine until about eight o'clock, and after that it is a guess. You know where the step is. Nobody arriving for dinner does, and nor does anyone carrying a tray out to the back table. Running mains lighting down a path means a trench, a cable and an electrician, which is why most people think about it once and then live with the dark for another three years. These stand 55 cm out of the ground, charge themselves through the day and come on by themselves at dusk, and the entire installation is pushing a spike into soil.

Why It Stands Out

• 55 cm tall — most solar path lights sit down at ankle height where the border swallows them. At 55 cm the lamp clears the planting and the light actually lands on the path.
• A filament bulb behind a clear lens — a visible warm filament in a cylindrical glass-look lens, so it reads as a light fitting rather than a garden gadget.
• 3000K warm white — the colour of a lamp indoors. The cold blue-white used in cheap solar lights is what makes a path look like a car park.
• Monocrystalline panel — the more efficient panel type, sitting flat on the cap where it sees the whole sky rather than tucked under a shade.
• IP65 rated — sealed against dust and against water from any direction, which is what an Australian storm season asks of outdoor lights.
• Nothing to wire — no trench, no cable, no transformer, no electrician. Outdoor solar lights go wherever you can push a spike in.
• A real on/off switch — shut them down over a wet winter or while you are away instead of leaving them cycling every night.

Where to Put Them

• Both sides of the front path — the job these were built for, and the one place in a garden where lighting is noticed by everybody who visits.
• Along the edge of the driveway — marking where the gravel stops and the garden bed starts, so nobody reverses into your agapanthus again.
• Beside steps and level changes — a set of stake lights at a change in height is worth more than six of them along a flat run.
• Around the deck or the entertaining area — low warm solar garden lights at the edge of a paved space give you something to see by without floodlighting the table.
• Down the side passage — the dark corridor between the house and the fence that you walk every bin night.
• Along a garden bed border — used as landscape lighting they draw the shape of a bed after dark, which is when a curved border looks its best.
• At the back gate and the shed door — the far end of the yard where there has never been power and never will be.

How It Works

1. The panel charges through the day — the monocrystalline cell on the cap collects while the sun is up, taking four to six hours for a full charge.
2. A light sensor does the switching — as the daylight drops it turns the lamp on by itself, and at first light the following morning it turns it off again. There is no timer to set and nothing to remember.
3. The filament LED lights the lens — warm light comes out through the clear cylinder in every direction, which is what spreads it across a path instead of putting one bright circle underneath.
4. The spike anchors it — the ABS ground spike takes the whole fitting without any fixing, so it moves whenever you change your mind.

How to Set Them Up

1. Charge them before the first night — switch each one on and leave it somewhere open and sunny for a full day before it goes in the ground. A first charge out of the box is what sets the run time for the rest of the season.
2. Put them together on the bench — the connecting rod goes into the ground spike, the lens shade seats onto the rod, and the solar bulb head drops into the shade. No tools and about a minute each.
3. Choose the spot for sun, not only for looks — the panel wants open sky through the middle of the day, so keep it out from under the eaves and clear of the shrub that is going to double in size by February.
4. Water the ground before you push — ten minutes with the hose and the spike goes in straight. Forced into dry summer clay it goes in crooked, and a leaning light is the thing you will notice every single night.
5. Set the spacing by the light, not by the tape — walk the path after dark and move them until the pools of light just reach each other. Where the path bends, put one on the outside of the curve.
Tip: stagger them, do not pair them. Lights placed opposite each other down a path read as a runway; alternating them left and right every few metres lights the same ground and looks like somebody designed it.

Care and Maintenance

• Wipe the panel every few weeks. Dust, pollen and salt build a film that cuts the charge long before you would ever notice it by eye.
• Trim what grows over them. A shrub that reached the panel in March will have buried it by November.
• Clean the lens with a damp cloth. The filament is the feature, so the glass-look cylinder is worth keeping clear.
• Switch them off if the garden is going to sit unused. The switch is there for exactly that, and it saves the cycling.

Specifications

What's Included

• 2, 4 or 6 × Solar bulb head with panel
• 2, 4 or 6 × Cylindrical lens shade
• 2, 4 or 6 × Connecting rod
• 2, 4 or 6 × Ground spike