Make it fox-proof

Very occasionally I get asked about a garden where foxes or squirrels have caused damage to a garden lighting system.

It rarely is squirrels damaging lighting in trees, but very occasionally squirrels have mistaken cables at the bottom of a tree for a new kind of food. So its a good idea to stop feeding squirrels and birds by throwing food onto the ground in areas where garden lights may be installed in the near future - or irrigation systems for that matter; plastic irrigation and garden lighting fittings will always get chewed before robust metal ones.

More usually the problem is foxes, especially the cubs when they reach the teething stage and are looking for yummy objects to excercise their new teeth on. And the problem always seems worse in certain urban ecnlaves than in the country - tell me why Ealing suffers more than Epping. You can design a garden lighting system to be fox-resistant if you know its a problem area for foxes. Using recessed lights made out of heavy brass makes lighting difficult to dig up. Use heavy brass spotlights such as Megabay's M2520 which aren't so easy to lift and also feature a cable entry through the spike, so if the cable is buried in a thick layer of mulch there is no loose cable coming out of the spotlight to chew on as there is with most other designs. You can go further depending on how much flexibility in positioning your garden lights you are willing to accept, possibly pinning down low voltage cables with tent pegs under a thick mulch helps to avoid any flexible bits which can be snagged and lifted - or you can install the low voltage cable in metal conduit. Don't use plastic conduit - they'll get through that - use metal conduit, possible the flexible kind made by suppliers like Kopex which are in galvanised steel and also available with PVC outer sheath. 240v cables should nearly alwys be steel wire armoured tyeps or mechanically protected to the same standard.

Using ground burial transformers and buried junction boxes filled with ground burial sealant resin such as T9968 from Lighting for Gardens is another way of keeping your garden lighting electrics off the dinner table. Otherwise you can ground recess them in manholes or recessed irrigation gear boxes provided your ground is well drained.

For those of you with a fox or squirrel problem and an existing garden lighting (or electrical or irrigation) system, I found some good advice on a local government site about urban fox pest control. Old wives tails offered to me include smearing cables with silicon sealant, which I'm told is effective but may not comply with usage regulations!