Rewiring the garden

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I wanted to show you what I did this morning, but, uh, it doesn't show. And that's the point.

What I've done is extend the wire for the Malibu lights around the perimeter of this corner. The original edge of the garden was about a foot from the house, about where the base of the little palm tree is. And that's where the spotlight that failed last week was.

Since I was going to get dirty anyway, I decided to do a nice, clean installation with a lot of fresh wire. I removed the old wire from the transformer, which is hanging off to the right on the wall behind the tiki bar, and guided the new wire out under the rocks. As you can see, I have a new spotlight installed, and since there is more wire now that runs along the edge of the grass, I can put in a path light or two, which should brighten up this area at night. The rocks are doing multiple duty, not only do they show the edge of the garden, to discourage people from walking up in there, they hold down the wire, and remind me where it is!

I'm a big believer in the use of indirect light for the garden, for the beauty of it, but I like to see where I'm going. Good garden design does both of these things. You don't need to light up your backyard like a stadium to have good lighting, you just need to do a little careful engineering. But if your Malibu lights glare into people's eyes, you have made a mistake. It takes a little refinement, and a lot of work.

Once I have everything all set here, I will need to plant something. Maybe some annuals?

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