If you’re looking usable outdoor lighting you’ll need brighter lights and to install them in the places around your patio and garden where you actually need light – near doors or places you’ll be eating or entertaining friends, for example.

If your solar lighting is more for mood and atmosphere you can get pretty creative with positioning. Try putting them in trees shining down into the patio / garden or along the edges of your patio / deck. It’s a good idea to experiment with where to put your solar lights – live with them for a couple of evenings before settling on a location.

Bear in mind that the only rule with placing outdoor solar lights is that it must be in a place where that gets at least a few hours of direct sunlight a day – otherwise they won’t be able to recharge enough for night use. Sounds obvious, but it’s easy to forget that.

If you really want to have evening light in a place that doesn’t get much sunlight during the day, consider buying an outdoor solar light kit that has a separate solar panel on a cable. That will allow you to place the panel in direct light while the solar lights themselves can be in a more shaded area.