All About Landscape Lighting

Keep your patch of the great outdoors illuminated

Landscape lighting was designed to illuminate the outside. It combines technology with nature to produce elegant illumination. Whether you want to showcase a pathway, pool, trees or parts of your house, there are numerous types and styles of lights available to you. Before you pick out a style of light, it's important to know a little about outdoor landscape lighting techniques.

Pathway landscape lighting illuminates walkways. Path lighting uses low light fixtures that are placed at an equal distance apart, pointed down and outwards. The tops of the fixtures are often covered to prevent glare and achieve an even, clear light.

Landscape uplifting is a technique used to draw attention to a specific object, such as a tree or shrub. Uplifting focuses light from a low fixture location, which creates a powerful illumination.

Downlighting, or moonlighting, creates almost the opposite affect of uplifting. A light is placed at a high fixture point, and shines downward on an object. Not only can this type of lighting illuminate a specific object, such as flower beds, but it also is used for safety and security.

Landscape spotlighting is used to draw significant attention to a specific object. Two or more lights are placed at a low level around the object and shine upwards at it, causing bright illumination.

Backlighting, or silhouette lighting, can look lovely on a large surface area, such as a wall. A wash light fixture is used, causing the objects in front of the wall, such as shrubs, flowers or an architectural design to appear as silhouettes.

Shadowing also uses walls, but the effect is different. Instead of the object in front of the light casting a silhouette, shadowing causes the object to cast a shadow on the wall behind it.

Any combination of techniques works well too. You'll just have to try out a number of looks until you are able to produce the desired effect for your home. Look for landscape lighting design plans on the internet.

Some advantages

There are a number of reasons why you should consider adding outdoor landscape lighting to your home. Here are a few:

aesthetically pleasing.

helps you to see walkways and driveways clearly at night.

wards off potential intruders.

can have an effect on mood, creating a "soft" or "loud" feel.

More information on landscape lighting