Painting With Light
A Night Landscape
As the sun disappears, no longer does your garden have to fade into the darkness not to be seen until the dawn sun rises again.
Landscaping with lights can bring your night-time garden alive again with dramatic shade and light.
Landscape lighting is not only functional, but can make a dramatic difference in the visual appeal of your home.
Using outdoor lighting will create a sense of life and drama in a front or backyard all year-round.
Outdoor lighting creates a sense of drama in a garden year-round.
When Spring brings new growth and blooms or when the ice shivers on tree limbs – imagine the interplay of light and shadow in them.
Dusk and Early Evening Gardens
One of the most pleasant and relaxing things to do after a hard days work is to sit in the garden on a warm Spring or Summers evening, sipping a crisp white wine from California or an ice cold beer.
Landscaping with lights makes this possible
This is enhanced with subtle landscape lighting that allows you to both see what you are doing and also enjoy the aspects of your garden and yard from a different perspective as shadow and light interplay with foliage, flowers, features and the structure of the trees and shrubs.
The Beauty of the Night
Staying indoors means we too often we miss out on what evening brings – quiet (or quieter!), a sense of ease at days end, a closure to work that is natural and peaceful.
Garden lights also turn the outdoors into a great entertainment area.
Using landscape lighting allows us more freedom to utilize our yards and gardens more – allowing the life growing there to enhance our sense of wellbeing. In the case of many who work long hours, sometimes it is the only time to enjoy the garden and landscape lighting can literally shine the spotlight on your landscape design.
Some aspects of your landscaping will take on a special beauty at night, if properly illuminated.
Lighting up walkways and ‘hidden from view’ areas of the home is a good safety and security measure and a deterrent to burglars.
Summary of Good Reasons for Outdoor Lighting
• It is decorative
• It offers a sense of welcome and ease of passage for visitors to your home.
• It highlights or accents the architectural features of your house
• Adds interest – with the interplay of shadow and light
• It provides security and safety (around pools and ponds etc)
• It enhances your property’s value.
Painting With Light
Consider these elements when designing your lighting plan.
• Remember the notion that “less is more” – and apply this to your garden lighting. Be subtle and don’t overdo it – you don’t want the place to be floodlit like a used car yard.
• This doesn’t mean you only highlight one tree and do nothing else with the lighting.
• What it does mean is that you don’t overdo it and, for example, spotlight on every tree. For good landscape lighting that is a feature of your garden, varying the types of lighting and their placement will add more aesthetic interest. Ambient light from the spotlights you do use can also illuminate nearby plants and foliage.
• Try to ‘paint’ with light – so that the garden becomes an entirely new place at night-time and wonderful to see and contemplate.
Be Innovative and Creative
1..Stagger the lights on a garden’s edge for a more natural effect. The same with pathway lighting – don’t make it seem like an airport runway, but simple illumination so that folks can see their way.
2. Position your ground level lights in such a way that they almost peep out of the plants that surround them.
This softens the glare, but still exposes enough light for function.
The purpose of landscape lighting is to add beauty to your home, and create enough lighting for you and your guests to safely move throughout the space that is your yard – both front and back.
Of course, there are exceptional times when you may need brighter light for tasks, or if you have people with special needs. For these instances, you can still have the light available, but installed on a switch that’s separate from your main landscape lighting.
Some Varied Ideas
Consider placing a string of small fairy lights (clear or white) along the branches of a tree or over an archway or pergola/patio. Not on every tree – but one that can stand a feature tree.
Garden lighting increases safety and reduces risk around walkways, decks, pools, spas, and other landscape features.
Types of landscaping lights to consider
• Up and Accent Lights.
• Floodlights.
• Path and Spread Lights.
• In-Ground and Well Lights.
• Underwater and Specialty Lights.
• Christmas lights
• Step and Brick Lights.
• Bollards, Beacons, and More.
Landscape lighting design also provides greater home security by deterring burglary, vandalism and other crime.
Outdoor Landscape Lighting is usually installed along walkways, steps, and driveways, pointing up at trees, walls, and fences.
The typical outdoor low-voltage landscape lighting system requires just three components: a transformer, low-voltage electrical cable, and the fixtures.
Outdoor landscape lighting is easy to install even if you’ve never done any electrical wiring.
Think Green!
Be more energy efficient and environmentally friendly and consider hooking up your outdoor lighting to a solar panel/s placed onto the roof. Your local solar energy store can advise you on the number of photovoltaic panels needed based on the lighting you have chosen.
You might even consider consulting them about hooking up all the house while you are at it – the savings from using solar energy supplementation to your power supply pays for itself in reduced bills – go to this page for more information.
LED Outdoor Lights
LEDs are more environmentally friendly than halogen bulbs, new technologies for heat management and efficient servicing have made them easy to install.
Solar Lighting
Solar outdoor lighting is the simplest and safest way to light to the landscape environment. Solar outdoor lighting requires no electricity, wiring or transformers. The cost savings over conventional 12v and 120v outdoor lighting is tremendous. The solar cells simply collect sunlight during the day and recharges the lithium batteries. Each unit has a photo control so that the lights automatically come on at dusk.
The normal operating “discharge” time is 8-10 hours when fully charged. The lights then recharge themselves again during the next day.
While solar landscaping is possible on most of the States, some are more likely to produce all year round better than others simply because of the availability of regular patterns of sunlight.
Ensure that panels are placed where they will receive the most sunlight. Avoid blocking by foliage and if they are placed on the ground, as distinct from the roof, try to install tracking – that is, t
hey can move to follow the sun as it traverses cross the sky.
Solar lighting will usually run for 8 – 10 hours a night – depending on the sunlight they have received during the day. Obviously this means they will be on longer in summer than in winter! If you are in an area where the winter night is 14 hours long, then you will not normally get enough sunlight to charge the batteries.
Choose solar landscape lights that use LED (light-emitting diode) light bulbs and nickel-cadmium or nickel-metal-hydride batteries. These last longer than the old incandescent lights, use less power and are brighter. The newer batteries also hold charge better.
Even with these improved bulbs and batteries, do not expect solar landscape lighting to be as bright as traditional low-voltage lighting.
You can purchase Low voltage outdoor lights in pre-packaged kits from either retail and online stores. Check that they come with the transformer, cables, and the lighting fixtures necessary to install low voltage lights.
Buy local! Imported low voltage lights made or assembled overseas may not have the same high quality as those produced in the U.S.
Please note that the wires of outdoor lights must always be grounded, and the fixtures should be rated as “water- resistant/UL approved for outdoor use.” Also remember that lights rated for indoor use should never be used outdoors.
