This Easy Hack Will Make Installing Walkway Solar Lights a Breeze

Outdoor lighting can be both an attractive landscape feature as well as a practical way to safely light dark pathways at night. Solar lights are an inexpensive and popular option to add those lighting elements to the areas around your house at night. The fixtures use the energy from the sun during the day to glow and illuminate outdoor spaces beginning at dusk.

Solar lights are typically easy to install and require no electrical maintenance. But if you’re having a hard time figuring out the best way to get them into the ground, we have a hack for you to try.

What’s the Best Way to Place Solar Walkway Lights?

There are a few points to consider when making a plan to place solar lights along walkways. The lights should be placed in the ground as close to the architectural features or part of the landscape you intend to highlight. But sometimes the immediate area of ground has soil that is rocky or too firm to easily spike the solar lights. That’s where this tip comes in, from TikTok creator @emilyrussellsprout:

@emilyrussellsprout Tiktok hack FTW #tiktokhack #lifehack #backyardtok #backyardhack #backyard #landscape #diylandscaping #solarlight ♬ The Home Depot Beat – The Home Depot

In the video, you can see how a quick spin of a drill into a patch of hard-to-break-up soil can help prepare the area and get your solar lights in place for the outdoor season. The hole will act as a guide and create an opening in the soil to easily insert the light fixture. It’s that easy!

Other Tips for Placing Walkway Lights

• Don’t place solar lights too close to each other. Anchor them with enough space between each light to act as a way to pull visitors along the path and create a visual sweep from light to light among shrubs and plantings.
• Don’t place a light right on a corner where a pathway turns on an angle. Try to have a light on each side of a corner where a path changes direction.
• Look for ways to use solar lights to highlight an interesting bush, garden element or group of plantings. Don’t forget to check out our collection of the best campsite solar lights.