led's limited

Its a foggy morning in Shanghai as I start a round of visits to Chinese manufacturers. They have come a long way in terms of quality in recent years, but they still have no real appreciation of why certain design features matter in the garden lighting business, I suppose because so few Chinese have a personal garden space in which to understand it at first hand.

Almost always the first thing a Chinese manufacturer shows is the latest led (light emitting diode) garden lighting product. Thankfully even they are beginning to admit that the so-called led spotlight is no such thing. Most led's don't have the projection to create lighting effects with garden subjects, so led spotlights have been merely a gimmick, something made down to a price to be sold in a colourful box in the garden centre or the typical garden lighting web site alongside that other joke product, the solar light.

That's about to change, though, but not from the Chinese led manufacturers. Chinese manufacturers of light fittings are increasingly deserting indigenous led manufacturers and changing over to led's from Western or Taiwanese companies for their technical performance and reliability. The impetus at present is coming from a small number of western companies who are taking the new generation of high power led's and packaging them in garden lighting products where they can resist problems of moisture, especially condensation, which afflict a lot of the cheaper Chinese offerings.

A good example of this was shown on Flemings Nurseries' Australian garden which won a gold Medal at this year's Chelsea Flower Show. ME Lighting provided their Australian led lighting products for a stunning lighting display which went largely unappreciated at this mainly daylight show. They have used the latest Luxeon 3w and 5w led's, plus some of the better quality low power led products, to produce one of the first practical ranges of led garden lights I have seen yet. They will be available in the UK shortly, so watch this space on http://www.lightingforgardens.com/home.php. Or you can e-mail me at sales@lightingforgardens.com to get an ME Lighting brochure and UK price list.

Lighting for Gardens also has some great offers on small led deck lights and recessed garden lights which fulfill the hitherto main application of led's - outlining a deck , patio or path.