Good lighting for flower beds?

Solar has come a long way but are still battery powered and the ones ive seen dont hold up long in yhe elements. Hardwired with commercial grade fixtures is the way to go

Yes we can replace bulbs but some of the fixtures themselves aren’t working.

Thanks to you and those below you with responses. I wasn’t a fan of solar but my husband mentioned them. Will look into the above recs!

Volt Lighting / Wired

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Volt Lighting / Wired

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We've got Volt Lighting wired landscape lights and they're by far the most durable, reliable outdoor lights we've found.

Volt also makes a spendy $100 solar light, but the reliability is unknown and IMO it's ugly:




We sometimes install cheaper outdoor solar lights from Amazon in locations that are far from our low-voltage wiring. These typically last 6 months in the Gulf Coast heat before they need to be discarded and replaced.

ETA: it's easy to replace the bulbs on our Volt pathway lights and spotlights. Those Volt lights are made out of heavy bronze, don't warp in the heat, and are compatible with standard 12v LED replacement bulbs sold on Amazon.

Spots or path?


If you have “old” fixtures, you can replace the mr16 socket for cheap (under a buck but that’s without the cost of how you’ll splice the wire. I like wire nuts because I’m lazy.


If it’s a wire problem, the wire is cheap, and buy a waterproof wire nut (they’re filled with silicone). Should be easy to determine if you have a little know-how.


If they’re path lights, they’re probably the same base with a different bulb, but they can be a bit trickier to replace.


There are loads of LED bulbs available out there. A friend of mine is a pro and suggests paying for the premium LED bulbs (like the $30 ones from FXL) are better. I bought cheap ones then eventually switched to Gledopto 4w zigbee multicolor bulbs. In many ways, I prefer the “Dumb” ones, but I’ve finally got most the communication problems sorted.



In terms of solar lights, most of what is at a big box store is very cheaply made junk. The “good” brands of landscape lighting include FX, Kichler, but you’ll pay a premium for these. Volt gets mixed reviews. I haven’t used any of their products, but they seem to be “nice enough” for most cases, but somewhat below the quality (and price) of the two others mentioned. But their website sells their whole catalog direct to consumer without a dealer model, so that’s a pretty big plus.

I use FX RS uplights. They’re solid. You can find them in bronze (which really blends into most gardens) on Amazon regularly for $50/light. They also sell a variety of color-matched mounts- I bought their j-box mounts for my column lights and drilled them into the brick under the white columns I have in my front yard (Acadian style home)- they have a lot more color and accessory options, but this is probably unnecessary in most cases. If I were starting from scratch, I would probably buy Volt, or go full-insane and retrofit ws2811 pixels into those crummy plastic solar lights that you can buy for cheap from your big box stores (though they’re a bit of a pain as if you want to retain individual control, you can’t “fork” anywhere and must run your wire linear from light to light, which doesn’t always suit the need).