garden fading circuits

hi all

i had an idea (which ive now seen is avaiable commercially) but is very expensive.

i require 4 circuits for garden lighting. low voltage would be preferred.
i would like 1 x circuit to be on for a varying amount of time (2 minutes - 10minutes) then fade out - as it feeds out another circuit to come on with a variable time, and so on.. or maybe to selct 2 circuits to come on. as above.

please could someone suggest some options.. i used to alot of small projects many years ago, but have not done anything for a long while.


many thanks

It sounds fairly straight forward.
It can be done with some basic 555 timer circuits and some relays.

Or if you have any knowledge in programming, you can use a microcontroller.