Festoon outdoor lights

[Cherryblossom200]

Hello!

I'd like to get some festoon garden lights for my garden. There are loads out there, but it seems the majority are a bit rubbish and fill with water.

Can anyone recommend any decent quality lights please?

Many thanks 😊

Just bumping this for you because I'd also like some suggestions

Lights in gardens are really bad. They have a massive detrimental impact on wildlife. Please think carefully before doing this.

Why?! They are solar powered little lights!

Really?! My garden has lots of solar lights. We have really tried to cultivate biodiversity and we have foxes, squirrels, hedgehogs, frogs and newts, lots of different types of bees and beetles...what is the problem with solar lights? I'm not being snarky, I've genuinely never heard it before.

I have John Lewis ones. They plug in. They're good quality. Only use them a few times a year for parties

It confuses insects and is really bad for nocturnal animals, particularly hedgehogs. I’ll find an article but there are loads if you Google.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/wildlife/garden-lighting-effects-on-wildlife

first article I found but there are loads. Hedgehogs are particularly affected.

Lights at night are awful for nocturnal wildlife. Maybe have a Google first? Or at least turn them off once you go inside.

The lights I've found turn off at night. So I'll just buy those, I need light in my garden while we're outside, otherwise the garden is unusable as it's pitch black out there otherwise 😂 I'm buying small patio lights as well as my dad has Alzheimer's and needs to see where he is walking.

This. Especially solar ones which stay on all night.

Embrace the dark!

I can't embrace the dark with a young child and my elderly father who can't walk properly and needs to be able to negotiate my garden safely. I need the garden to be safe as well. I'm buying lights which I can switch off.

Thanks, btw my post was asking for recommendations. If anyone has any decent recommendations I'd be grateful.

We have these, they are mains lights for the garden and I have had them up for about 7 years now with not a single issue. They are on a smart plug and turn off.
Saying that, the reviews aren't great so maybe they aren't as well made as they were.

www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/svartra-led-lighting-chain-with-12-lights-black-outdoor-20521805/

For anyone with mains powered ones do you have an outdoor plug socket or do you run the wire through a window?

Are they under cover and if not, does the rain get in? I'm also looking for some!
Re wildlife...as long as they're not on all night I don't see the problem...

They are hung along the eves of a outhouse outside. No rain in them at all but I suppose they are sheltered a bit. The reviews suggest some have rain get in (there are only three reviews though). Like I said, I've had mine years and not even lost a bulb.

It's a shed outside so we ran the wire through a window.

We have these op, but they are wired and round a gazebo so somewhat sheltered, outside plug point.

i also have solar fairy lights and little spot lights, also from Amazon, make the garden look pretty. And don’t worry about wildlife, plenty of dark spaces for them unless you go hard core in lighting it up.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07VT69DVF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Do you know it is really easy to install an outdoor socket? The wire from the outdoor socket coming into the house just uses a normal 3 pin plug so you can plug it into a socket inside. Basically the outdoor socket plugs into an indoor socket. Here is a video if you want to see how it is done, another one to watch would be Ultimate Handyman, exactly the same but reassures you that you are doing it right.

It seems that bright LEDs are doing more harm than good https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/25/led-streetlights-moth-england-eco-friendly-sodium-insect-decline . They're certainly useless for pedestrians and drivers.

Our council has turned off our street lights so for security reasons I'd like some little lights out there.

FGRYB Festoon Lights Outdoor... https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BR3QCH2F?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

I have these and they’ve been up all winter and survived beautifully! They are mains powered and so we only switch them on when they are needed in the summer. They are a warm white.