You’ve put lots of time and effort into a flawless landscape, I know.
Then why let such a masterpiece gets faded at nightfall when, with some strategically located landscape lights and a flick of a switch, the darkness will be immediately rolled back and leave behind all display.
What I’m going to share with you is not just where to place landscape lighting but also about a pleasing lighting scheme.
Path lighting
Start with the most essential type of lighting.
It reveals to the safety of you and your guests when visiting the house. The way they’re installed will decide how safe it is able to guide folks to the main door. But just because of that doesn’t mean you can’t add a sense of welcoming and romance.
When lighting a path, there is a wide range of options to consider. You can take advantage of down-lighting techniques or fixtures along the driveway.
While choosing the proper brightness of these lights, you should pay attention to their directing angles. Avoid glaring will decrease some unwanted accidents and hurting one’s eyes when they walk along it.
With fixtures, just one more thing to consider is whether it would be easily struck or kicked by a mower.
Moonlighting
Moonlighting is usually the light fixtures located highly inside a tree’s foliage or structure about your property, directing downward to mimic a soft silvery flow similar to moonlight.
Compared to other landscape lighting techniques, this is a little bit less popular because it asks for more skills and effort to successfully pull it off.
But I highly recommend this for people who usually throw late-night parties in their outdoor yard or revel in midnight swims. It not only works efficiently as a security light but also brings very good illumination effort to your landscape.
Lamps to use for moonlighting should be a 20W with 60 degrees of beam angle. They should be located 20 to 30 feet high in the tree.
Downlighting
What is downlighting?
Basically, it is used for lighting up a structure, tree, garden, or any feature of your house with lamps angled down, not up. This lighting technique aims to imitate natural light to give a warm glow to the viewers without being able to determine where it is from.
The results might be varied based on which type of lights attached to but in general, it makes a directly illuminated area at the structure’s base where it’s attached to.
So while concealing that structure or feature, it makes a nighttime front house or gardens safer and more secure.
You can mount it on various places, such as on steps to prevent falls or in flower beds, bushes, and ground cover to conceal them.
Some people prefer to install it beneath benches and seating walls as well.
Uplighting
This lighting technique gets its name from the direction where the light is angled so contrast to downlighting, uplighting will direct the lamps up. And it’s located below the focus elements.
It is usually placed along one’s outdoor space boundaries for leveraged security or below fences and outdoor walls as long as they’re flat surfaces for additional depth.
As part of an overall landscape lighting plan, uplighting also helps to create romantic nighttime ambience in your landscape with shadow.
The lights used for uplighting are also various, but the most common are:
Flood: With a wider beam angle, it’s usually used for lighting extremely big trees, features, structures or house facades.
Well: This is normally mounted slightly below grade to deliver uplight without directly pointing to the walkers’ eyes and hurting them. Well lights are also workable in the lower part of walls or underside of benches and plants.
Wash: Wash lights are considered a good choice for gentle illumination of wall surfaces, shrubs, and lower plants, known for its practical pathway lighting and visual interest adding to awful walls.
Spot/bullet: This directional light, highlighting a narrow spot beam, is usually pole-mounted or surface mounted with adjustability to shine a light on prized trees or plants.
Ponds, fountains, shoreline, spas, and pools
Like other features in your garden, such water is beautiful during the day with lilies floating in the breeze and sunlight catching the subtle sparkle of darting fish.
But they all disappear when the sunsets.
Lighting is the best way to turn them into spectacular and there are usually two main types: The submersible and the downlights.
As its name defined, submersible lighting is used underwater to shine up through the water, making your ponds sparkle beautifully. Perfect for ponds featuring a waterfall with various tiers or an expanded waterfall.
It’s usually installed in the crannies and nooks.
But you should concern about its maintenance because submersible lighting will show all of the leaves, dirt, and algae in it. Not to say that moss can grow over the lenses, making it dimmer.
With ponds downlighting, it highlights natural, diffused light that not only helps nail up the water but also the surrounding landscape.
You can install downlights within the tree canopy for best shadowing effect or in the branches overhead of trees surrounding the pond for natural moonlighting effect.
In grade
This lighting technique is often mounted flush with the surface at the base of hardscape features, such as a stone wall.
There will be some places in your garden or front house where other fixtures are useless, either giving unwanted obstacles or a tripping hazard. It’s when the in-grade lighting comes into place.
Conclusion
Here’s the end of this article.
I hope with these pieces of informative advice, you’re able to find out the most suitable landscape lighting techniques as well as where to install them.
Thanks for reading!
Read more:
Outdoor Lighting Ideas For The Front Of Your House
Best Outdoor Wireless Motion Sensor Lights
Best Outdoor Solar Flood Lights
I’m James J. Decker, a hobbyist and DIYs and also a big of home improvement and gardening tools. I immensely enjoy how these amazing products improve productivity and efficiency, and allow me to do jobs for which I would’ve otherwise needed professional help.
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