Landscape Lighting

Dancing Garden

Landscape lighting refers to the lighting up of the outdoors using artificial lighting. Landscape lighting can enhance a landscape with dramatic lighting techniques which contrast light and shadow, or be more subtle with wide washes of outdoor illumination. In addition to the aesthetics of landscaping lighting, well placed lighting fixtures improve visibility for home security and safety.

Various styles and forms of landscape lighting include uplighting, accent lighting, silhouette lighting, directional lighting, path lighting, and security lighting.

Landscape lighting is no fool’s game. It requires thoughtful planning and execution. Draw a birds-eye view of your property to use for layout purposes, including the house footprint, walks, driveways, and major landscape features. Include utility lines, sprinkler lines and other buried items. It's important to know where lighting wires are buried for future activities, such as planting and digging. Consider protecting wires inside conduit, especially where they are close to the surface or the edge of a bed. Once the precautions are taken and planning ready you can really showcase your beautifully groomed garden, lawn, paths and trees both day and night by creating dramatic effects with professional, quality landscape lighting.

One can illuminate the lawn cover, the flower beds or even a shrubbery. This is garden lighting. Accent lighting can be added to focus illumination to highlight trees, texture of walls or shadows in the steps and path. Path lighting illuminates walkways evenly and also by avoiding glare. This also adds to the safety and security by lighting up a path leading to your home. One can illuminate the patio, the paths and even the walkway by using simple soft lighting which illuminates evenly without causing discomfort.

If one has a specific object such as a statue or a rock sculpture one can light it up with spotlights at its base. This can give it a dramatic effect. This can be done for an entrance as well. To give a three dimensional effect one can do landscape cross lighting which involves crossing of several sources of light over an object rendering it a 3-D illumination. Pools can be lit with uplighting form their base or by down lighting from their edges.

Landscape lighting not only enhances how your home looks and how you feel around it at night, but it also gives you an added sense of safety and comfort. The essence of landscape lighting systems is using tasteful and unobtrusive fixtures which eliminate harsh glare and add a subtle, sophisticated, and magical look to your home and gardens at night.

There are many more fixture articles in our fixture section. There is more specific information in the links at the beginning of this article. They can guide you where you need to go.