The Original AG 76 said:
In S Texas the difference between the high end professional stuff and Home Depot stuff is that the high end MAY last a year longer than the cheap stuff till the fireants , critters and Mother Nature degrades the wires and fixtures requiring replacement. The Lowe's transformers last just as long as the high end stuff. Don't waste your money on expensive lights and fixtures. You will be replacing them anyways.
I couldn't disagree more. I live in Houston and when we moved into our current home in 2008, we had all of the front landscaping taken out, raised, then put back, and four new beds built from scratch in the back yard. I had a Malibu set in our beds at our old house, and it seemed I was always replacing something. A bulb here, a light there, not to mention the entire setup all at once after a freak weather incident. After talking to our landscaper, he convinced me to not install those same Malibu lights (I already had them). It wasn't cheap, but we are at almost 10 years and all I've had to do was replace bulbs. There is one lens that is cracked, but no water gets through.
These are the lights I bought from him that we have out front, and I couldn't be happier.
https://www.fxl.com/product/up-lights/standard/siWhat he did that I like the most is put all of the lights along the house on a single run and dedicated solo runs for the two larger trees so I could go up in wattage as the trees grow.
I did have him run additional wire through the back beds and I put higher end store-bought fixtures in the back myself because it's just some bushes and crape myrtles. Out of the four lights in the back, all of them have been replaced at least once, and one of them three times. I guess you get what you pay for.