Landscape Lighting | Landscaping Ideas

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Landscape lighting can be both useful and ornamental. From the safety standpoint, landscape lighting can illuminate paths, alert you of movement near your home and make it easier to see whatever you might need to see in the dark.

But landscape lighting can also be decorative, as when it is used to highlight plants that you want to be able to see in the twilight or dark. The right landscape lighting can make or break your nighttime garden. You’ll never be able to see those beautiful moonflowers you planted if you don’t have some good lighting.

Lighting Structures

Landscape lighting basically encompasses two things: lighting on your home or other structures and lighting in the garden itself. We don’t often think of buildings, walls, and other solid structures like storage sheds as part of the landscape, but when it comes to lighting they can play a valuable role.

Lights mounted on the house usually serve the purpose of illuminating a door or letting you know if an intruder might be nearby, but those same high-powered halogen and incandescent security lights can be pointed at the garden to give a glow to anything you want to highlight. The advantage of mounting your landscape lighting on the house is that you can tap into the home’s power without having to install a long extension cord or some other means of getting power to the garden.

Use a lamp mounted on the corner of your home to show off a tree that looks great in all seasons, or mount a light on the wall behind your rose bushes so your friends can admire them, even when they come over after dark.

Traditional Lighting

The more traditional form of landscape lighting involves decorative lights that are often shaped like lanterns and used to light a path or highlight the best parts of the garden. Because of the problems (both logistical and in terms of safety) involved in running electricity to the garden, the best choice for this sort of landscape lighting is solar or battery-powered lights.

Solar Power

Solar-powered lights are getting a lot better, both in terms of their looks and the amount of light they emit (though I have some friends with the most pathetic solar-powered “security” light on the planet. It wouldn’t scare a fly away). Some of these look as good as other lamps with less sustainable power sources, and they often have highly efficient batteries and solar panels to help soak up as much sun as possible. Many now used LED lights that are very bright, and there are no bulbs to burn out. These are ideal for landscape lighting, especially along a path that gets a lot of sun during the day. If your sun situation is less than ideal, battery powered lights could be an option. There are not as many models that are strictly battery powered, because solar LEDs have become so popular. A cool option in battery powered landscape lighting is the firefly light, which is sort of like a battery powered Christmas light. These little lights sparkle like fireflies and are fun accent lighting for a party, but not very practical for everyday use.

Spotlights

Spotlights, which can be individual lights on pedestals or spotlights buried in the ground or mounted to a wall, can be an excellent addition to your landscape lighting. These lights can highlight your favorite plant or flowerbed, showing off the great work you have done on your yard even when the sun isn’t out. In-ground lights can be wired right into your existing electrical. If you aren’t comfortable doing the work yourself, an electrician can help. A light shining up on a beautiful tree like a Japanese maple, redbud or dogwood, can make a huge impression on anyone who visits your yard after dark.When choosing where to put your landscape lighting, consider the plants that you like the most and might want to accent. Look at any paths (or places where you might build paths) that could use some illumination. What parts of your yard of you use when it’s dark? A little bit of added landscape lighting can make a big difference in terms of the look of your yard and can make it safer for you and your family as well.