Gardman Solar Dragonfly Crystal Glowlight > Reviews (1)

Add some colour to your garden

I have recently been spending some time and money trying to get my garden looking a bit better for the summer so that I won’t be embarrassed to invite people around for bbq’s or drinks on the decking.
It is starting to look a lot tidier and neater but it was still looking a touch bare so I went out and bought some garden ornaments for the walls and some solar lights for the trellis and pergola. I was a bit unsure about buying solar lights as I have had them before and wasn’t very impressed with them but this time they have made a big difference in not only making my garden look nicer but also with helping to give it some ambience.

Dragonfly solar lights

As well as some plain fairy type lights I also bought these dragonfly lights as I thought that they were a little bit more unusual and they were the perfect length to fit the entire length of my pergola.

They weren’t that expensive and only cost me £5 on ebay but similar dragonfly lights can be found in garden centres and online though at a higher price than what I paid for them.

There are 30 LED lights which are spaced all along a clear cable. The cable is long enough that it can easily stretch along my pergola and the length is perfect for being able to have the lights strung with them hanging low and high.
The cable leading from the solar panel box is 1.5 metres in length so there is plenty of room to be able to hide the box and still have loads of cable to put the lights wherever you want.

Instillation is simple and is simply a case of finding the sunniest place to put the solar panel box and then stringing up your lights where you want them. The lights are actually just little fairy lights and the dragonflies are actually little clear plastic dragonflies that you have to place over the fairy lights yourself. Having the dragonfly’s be separate actually has the added benefit of meaning that when the lights stop working which eventually all solar lights in my experience do I can just buy some really cheap replacement fairy lights and reattach the dragonfly’s to these one’s saving me from having to buy a whole set of the dragonfly ones again.

Instead of just being plain coloured lights they are actually multi coloured and they also have a few different settings on them. I can choose to have the lights either static where they come on and just remain lit for the whole night or else I can have them twinkle on and off but I find this to be annoying. The setting that I have them on is where they light and then fade slowly before lighting again. I personally find this setting to be the nicest one to watch and because they are fading on and off slowly they really stand out.

I find that the solar panel box is really good and even though we live in the UK and are never guaranteed any sun the lights work every night without fail and the box charges up on even the cloudiest of days.
The box has an attached spike so that you can spike it into the ground wherever it will get maximum exposure to the sun.

I actually have my box on the roof next to the pergola so it isn’t spiked in but the box is heavy enough on its own that the wind and rain doesn’t cause it to blow off.
The solar box also has a sensor in it which automatically detects when dusk is approaching and turns on the lights as soon as it starts getting a little bit dark and turns them off again as soon as dawn approaches and the sky starts getting a little lighter.
The lights themselves are supposed to stay lit for 6-8 hours when fully charged but even when I got them a couple of months ago when the nights were still longer the lights managed to stay on the entire night without starting to fade.

The light that is given off with these solar lights is surprisingly good. I thought that it would simply be a case of ambient lighting but they actually light up the whole garden. This gives the added benefit of extra security because I know now that no one could be hiding down the bottom of the garden as I would be able to see them with the lights on.
They are also extremely lovely when on. The multi coloured lights add a real ambience to my garden and I enjoy just sitting out on my decking having a glass of wine watching the lights. They have also made a real difference to the overall look and feel of my garden stopping it from looking so plain and boring.
Even during the day the plastic dragonflies stop the lights from just looking like some tatty fairy lights and instead they actually look more like garden ornaments.

Recommendation

I would most definitely recommend these dragonfly lights. They look stunning when all lit up and have made a real difference to my garden. Loads of people have commented on them and I am really pleased with them and wouldn’t hesitate to purchase them again.
I got them for a bargain price but I wouldn’t mind paying double what I did to buy them again if I had to as I really do think that they are worth paying for.
Although I have mine strung up along the length of my pergola I think that they would look amazing strung up on trees and bushes in the garden. They add a sense of fun and merriment to the garden and would be ideal of summer garden parties and bbq’s. They would also help the garden look less bare and desolate in winter.
They also work exactly as they should and are surprisingly powerful for little solar lights. They also come with a one year warranty so that you know you can get them replaced should something go wrong with the box or the lights.