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Lighting Up the Garden with a Luminary

I've always been a big fan of solar lighting.  I like the convenience of adding light where I want it in the garden without having to wire in electrical lines.  I also like how solar energy is collected during the day and distributed later when it is needed without using resources from the power grid.  Solar energy is a very cool thing!  To add a little lighting effect to the garden this week I put together an easy to assemble tower of light luminary using solar lighting.  You can easily assemble this for your garden in about an hour.  All the supplies are available at Lowe's who also provided me with the materials for my project through Lowe's Creative Ideas.


Here's how easy this garden luminary project is:

First you need a few supplies.  Three dryer vent aluminum tubes, pea gravel, larger sized gravel, a nice pot, a couple stakes, and a set of solar lights.  For tools you will need a pair of metal snips to cut the aluminum tubes into various heights and a drill.

Once you have your supplies fill the pot with enough pea gravel to stick your solar lights inside.  Then cover with more gravel to protect the cords from the sharp aluminum tube edges.  Then trim your tubes to varying heights.  They come in 24" lengths so I left one that height and cut one to 18 inches.  The leftover six inches from that one was attached to another one to make it 30 inches tall.





Then fit the tubes over the lights carefully and add a couple stakes inside the tubes to help hold them in place. Fill the pot up with the larger decorative gravel to hold the tubes in place.  The tubes should be covered at least 4-6 inches with gravel at the bottom to prevent too much movement by the wind.


Next I drilled holes in the sides to make a pattern.  The pattern you choose is only limited by your imagination!


The last step is to make sure your solar panel is facing a direction that will get enough sunlight to light the luminary.



Sorry for the blurred picture -
darkness and rain aren't a good mix!

And that's all there is for this project!  A simple and easy way to add light to your garden.