Landscape Lighting Considerations

By B.E. Conrad

It is important to consider a number of factors when lighting up your exterior landscape. After all, your garden, lawn, driveway, walkway and other exterior elements are very much an extension of your home, and they should be properly lit in order to show the home in the best possible light.

Exterior lighting is also an important safety element, and studies have shown that well lighted homes are less likely to be burglarized and vandalized. For this reason, it is important that your exterior lighting plan include both practical factors and ascetic considerations.

In order to create the most natural looking outdoor lighting for the landscape, study the patterns of natural daylight at various times of the day, and to attempt to recreate that landscape through the judicious use of lighting. Less can be more when it comes to lighting up the landscape, and it is important to use subtle lighting, and to avoid over-lighting the landscape.

Also consider the focal points of your garden as you design your lighting plan. A few well placed exterior lights, placed strategically near the focal points of your landscape, can provide a stunning and dramatic effect.

In many cases, a combination of light sources and lighting approaches will work best. Using a combination of different sources, and hiding the lights themselves among the foliage, is a great way to provide a natural look and feel to the exterior of the home.

There are a number of ways to achieve these dramatic and varied effects through the proper use of outdoor lighting. One of the most popular outdoor lighting methods is known as moonlighting, and it consists of placing a light up high, and allowing it to filter through the branches of surrounding trees. This can provide a dramatic impact for any landscape.

Uplighting is another popular technique, and it consists of placing a light below an object and allowing it to shine up to highlight the object. This technique can work particularly well for large landscape elements, such as boulders and statuary.

Shadowing, or the process of placing a light behind and object to create a shadow, works well for statues and garden sculptures as well, and those homeowners whose landscapes contain such elements may want to consider using a few shadow lights throughout the landscape.  Low key accent lighting, which focuses on a number of different elements throughout the exterior of the home, can complete the look and provide a stunning beauty for the home and surrounding environment.

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