Essential Landscape Lighting Accessories

Landscape lighting is often a do-it-yourself job, particularly with low-voltage landscape lights and solar lights. Every outdoor lighting setup requires more than just lights and bulbs. If you're in the planning stage of your own DIY landscape lighting job, these are the essential landscape lighting accessories to buy.

Transformer Unlike a high-voltage landscape lighting system that's installed by an electrician, low-voltage landscape lights require a transformer. It's the landscape lighting accessory that reduces power from the house and distributes it to each light. The transformer you buy should be powerful enough for your current lighting setup, with a little juice to spare in case you add landscape lights in the months ahead. Transformer wattage ratings include 60-watt, 150-watt, 200-watt, 300-watt, 600-watt, and 900-watt. Landscape wire/lighting cable Using a heavier gauge lighting cable and shorter cable lengths can help minimize the "voltage drop" problem associated with low-voltage landscape lighting systems. An essential landscape lighting accessory in this case is 100 feet (or more) of 10-2 low voltage cable.

Deck mount/wall mount

Deck mounts and wall mounts are essential landscape lighting accessories in cases where floodlights or safety/security lights need to be elevated. A deck mount coupled with an extender can also be used on horizontal or inclined surfaces.

Riser/pole/extender

Risers, poles, and extenders are landscape lighting accessories that are used to extend the height and thus the light spread of your landscape lights. They can also be attached to flanges or adapters to hold the landscape light fixtures in place.

Stakes

Ground stakes feature a receptive top for securing a landscape light fixture, and a slanted or staked bottom for mounting the fixture in the ground. Stakes are useful landscape lighting accessories for garden lights or yard lights.

Motion sensor/motion detector

If your landscape lights are doing security duty, or if you'd just like to conserve energy, a motion sensor or motion detector is an essential accessory for your landscape lighting system.