Outdoor Landscape Lighting Ideas

Landscape Lighting Ideas to Enhance your Outdoor Space

People often spend considerable time and money completing the landscaping in their yard, but when night falls that beautiful landscaping basically disappears. There are many landscape lighting ideas you can use to highlight different landscaping features, make dark areas of your yard useable at night, and increase security around your home. When you begin making a plan for landscape or garden lighting you need to begin by thinking about the purpose for your different landscape lighting aspects so that you are haphazardly throwing lights into your yard.

Here are some general tips to think of when creating your landscape lighting plan.

Mix Up The Styles : By varying not only the type of lighting you use, but also the fixtures you can avoid everything looking too uniform.
Be Mindful Of Placement: Less is usually better. By carefully choosing the placement of your lighting you can often decrease the number of lights needed.
Don’t Forget To Highlight Texture And Color : Pathway lights and spotlights can allow you to highlight or emphasize different colors and textures in plants you have chosen in your landscape design.
Recreating Moon Lighting : Placing lights high up in large trees can give you a natural and indirect light that replicates moonlight.
Choose Your Hue: Depending on the application you may want to go for cool or warm toned lighting. Moonlight is on the cooler end of the spectrum and has a blue tone to it. The opposite end of the spectrum would be yellow toned candlelight.
Creating Shadows : You don’t want stark bright light in your yard, so that means you are going to end up with some shadows. But, this isn’t a bad thing! Interesting and intricate shadow patterns can add to the lighting effect in your yard. Just be mindful of the shadows and you can be purposeful with the placement of them. Placing your landscape lighting at night is a great way to see how the shadows will be cast and to make sure you are pleased with the effects created by the shadows.

Paver Lighting

With paver lighting you can use outdoor light fixtures to highlight the edges of a stone patio or walkway. Paver lights are flush with the stone, which gives you the benefit of not having to worry about damaging or tripping over traditional solar lights along the edge of a walkway or patio. Paver lights are also available as led landscape lighting options. LED landscape lights are beneficial because they last much longer than traditional halogen lights and are more durable in their ability to withstand shock, vibrations, and all types of inclement weather. They also give you more flexibility in the lighting effects you create; they can be set up with a dimmer.

Pond Lighting

Soft lighting around the edge of your pond or water feature not only can serve to accent the design aspect, but can also be a safety feature so than guests don’t end up taking an unintended dip in your pond after dark!

Swimming Pool Lighting

If you have a swimming pool then swimming pool lighting can add to the atmosphere in your backyard and is also beneficial in nighttime swimming.

Water Featuring Lighting

If you have a water feature, such as a fountain or spillway using outdoor light fixtures will allow you to highlight your water feature and you can use lighting from within the water or external lighting to create different effects.

Deck Lighting and Patio Lighting

It is a good idea to ensure that your patio lights illuminate the edges of your patio or deck so that it is easy to discern where the edges are located. Using indirect lighting for your seating areas are helpful, this cuts back on harsh direct lights at eye level, nobody wants to be squinting into the light as you are trying to enjoy a relaxing evening on your deck or patio. Another lighting option for your hardscapes such as patios or decks are strands of led lights that can be affixed to the underside of your deck railing or other hardscape items.

As you can see there are a number of things to consider when it comes to landscape lighting. Second Nature is experienced in all aspects of landscape lighting, from design to implementation. Call us today to speak with a design expert about the landscape lighting plan you have in mind.

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