Low-Voltage Cable Depth: Code Minimums vs What Survives a Shovel

Check your local electrical and landscape ordinances — requirements vary. In practice we bury FX lighting cable deep enough that routine aerating and bed turnover do not nick it, and we sleeve under walkways with PVC so a future hardscape crew does not cut the circuit.

Leave as-built notes: which tap, which home run, approximate path. The next tech should not need ground-penetrating radar to add one path light.

Use listed waterproof connectors. Twisting wires under a wire nut in wet soil is how intermittent flicker starts six months later.