August 25th, 2011 
Admin If you’re one of the millions of homeowners who are adding lighting to their landscape now that warmer weather is here, you’re probably trying to figure out how to get the effect from your lights without spend too much money. The easiest way to do this is to find inexpensive lighting to various key points in your yard so that it “pops” at night when your visitors and family see it when arriving at your home. You could hire a professional landscaper to plan, buy, and install your lights for you but if you choose to use a simple lighting plan you’ll find that it’s not that hard to take on this task yourself.
You have many kinds of outdoor lighting to choose from but the easiest type to install yourself is to use outdoor string lighting. Not only can you find them at any local home improvement store in your area but they are inexpensive to purchase as well. You can also find them in LED (light emitting diode) and solar varieties so that you can save money on your monthly electric bill.
Some easy ways to use outdoor string lighting in your yard:
If you have bushes that line the front of your home, you can add lights to them by looping them around the base of them on the ground. This will create the effect of a line of light connecting each of them.
You’ve probably seen your neighbors porches lit up with patio lights as you’ve driven through your neighborhood at night. Most of the time, they are just draped over the patios rails. If you want to add some string lights to your patio as well as your yard, try wrapping them around your porches posts and columns. You can also weave them through your railings so that you create what looks like a wall of light at night.
If you have a few pathways around your home that lead up to the porch or around the backyard, add pathway lights so that your visitors can see at night. But instead of just hanging lights next to the edge of the pathway, use rope lights that you can place directly on the ground next to it. Rope lights are outdoor string lights that are encased in a bendable waterproof plastic tube so that they can be placed anywhere and not be damaged by the weather. They are also available in different colors if you want to experiment.
As you can see from these easy to implement ideas, putting together your own yard lighting system isn’t that difficult. By installing your own lights and buying the right types of lights for what you want to accomplish, you’ll only spend a few hundred dollars as opposed to the thousands of dollars a professional lighting professional will cost you.
