We moved into this house 5 ½ years ago and the backyard was a jungle. From what I understand one of the previous owners wanted to be self sustaining and able to live off of the land. There were literally miles of PVC buried in the ground for irrigation and an untold number of random bushes. The landscaping was a complete nightmare to me because nothing really made sense. Not only that but for how large the backyard is there wasn’t any working lighting. There were approximately 50 yards lights on 2 different strings but none of them worked and both transformers were shot.
At the time I didn’t think it would be worth my time to try to uncover all of the problems with those lights, so all of the lights and wire were pulled out and given away. So I still had a backyard with lots of unlighted space and I certainly didn’t want to try to redo all of those yard lights. Tiki torches were an option but not a very good one if you ask me so I settled on solar lights. Solar lights to me meant very little maintenance and enough light to give the yard a nice warm feeling at night. Looking around though I found that mostly they are fairly expensive but there can be bargains to be found with enough effort. I got most of mine for less than 20.00 each and haven’t had any problems with them yet. Not even a burned out bulb.
Like I said the yard was a complete mess and we have spent the good part of 5 years just trying to undo all of the mess that the previous owner had done. I am sure I will take some heat from all of you tree lovers when you find out how many trees had to be taken out of this yard, but you really would have had to see it to understand. The largest tree that was taken out was a 40’ eucalyptus tree that decided to break one night in the wind and fall on my roof and my shed. I had never dealt with a eucalyptus tree before and I have to say that is the hardest and heaviest wood I have ever seen. But now where it once stood are two solar lights that shine on my new pool. The pool is a whole other story that I am sure to tell about soon, with the moral being never try to dig a pool by hand.
With all of the trees cleared and the pool finally finished my solar lights make the back yard very inviting for a midnight swim. In fact that is my absolute favorite time to swim because of the peace on quite that nothing but nighttime can bring. I certainly know that there are cheaper alternatives for your yard lighting but never forget the satisfaction that comes with never having to pay your local utility company to light up your yard again. Solar lights like any green technology are a gift that you keep giving yourself year after year.
