About Garden Lighting Plans

Lighting your garden for ambiance and beauty deserves a design plan that will do your landscape justice. Spotlights and accent lights combine to create magical scenery you can enjoy after the sun goes down. Your garden lighting plans should include a mixture of lighting sources, most of which can be solar-powered, saving you money while providing soft illuminations to your outdoor space.

Accentuate

Begin your lighting plans with a simple sketch of your garden area, placing the larger components in first, like waterfalls, benches, statues and special trees. Accentuate these features with spotlights, up lights, down lights to create silhouettes, shadows and flowing water that sparkles. Your walkways, patio or deck, and the back of your home should also be included in this initial lighting plan.

Coverage

Fill in your lighting plans with shrubbery sections, wooded areas and landscaped areas. Spread the solar landscape lighting around the perimeter of the wooded and shrubbery areas, and place them closer together to highlight your flowers and other landscaping. Add a post light to your lighting plan standing in the midst of your flowers or alone in your grass to draw attention to an area with little landscaping.

Transition

Tying the accentuated areas together with the low-lying, coverage lighting is where your garden lighting plan comes together. Transition from shrubbery coverage to silhouetted trees gradually so that the lights compliment each other without creating a spotlighted area unnecessarily. Planning your garden lighting design with a combination of low and medium voltage lights will also help transition from lighter areas to more subtle, softer lit areas.

Security

Garden lighting plans do more than accent your favorite statue or create interesting shadows among the trees, they also offer security. Lighting your garden walkway can help prevent accidents, and motion-triggered security spotlights can help deter intruders. Consider all of the possible ways you can light well-traveled areas with either subdued light flowing from a nearby set of shrubbery, or by lining your path with solar landscape lights. Floodlights will showcase your home in a way that will cause a burglar to seriously reconsider his intentions.

Benefits

Garden lighting plans that incorporate several different types of lights and varying voltages offer effects that can seem mystical and serene. Whether you enjoy your lit garden from the inside of your home or by sitting amid the shadows created by well placed up lights, the benefits of your design will be illuminated for years to come.

Resources

• Outdoor Lighting Techniques