The Best Landscape Lighting Ideas

It is a shame to lose the use of your landscaped backyard just as the sun is setting, the air is cool and the fragrance of your flowers is at its peak. Installing landscape lighting virtually creates an extension of your home. Landscaped lawns become a garden room where you can entertain, relax and revive. Finding the best landscape lights for your purposes will help you illuminate the possibilities for your outdoor space.

Safety Lights

The most common kind of lighting most homeowners consider is safety lighting, or lights that illuminate deck areas, gates, driveways or stairways at night. This choice of lighting can be both functional and beautiful, as well as perform different functions in your landscaping. For example, a floodlight is a common choice for a safety light on a deck. The are installed through the home's main electrical wiring system and can be placed above or beside doors, or near a fence or gate. Consider using a decorative flood light that both lights up a gated area or driveway, but is placed to draw attention to an item of interest in your landscaping as well. Large trees, lit with a floodlight, can cast interesting shadows and look completely different at night. Keep in mind where your floodlights are placed and where they are directed for safety and beauty.

Feature Lights

When you have an exquisite array of lush garden flowers, plants, bushes and trees, you want to enjoy them and show them at their best both day and night. When planning your garden lighting, consider areas of interest that may be especially dramatic at night. Tall trees or hedges, for example, become impressive and mysterious with a spotlight (placed in the ground facing up towards the sky) at the base. Often areas of low foliage or large spreading leaves will look enchanting with a globe light hidden amongst them. Globe lights cast a soft sphere of accent light without drawing attention to the hardware.

Guiding Lights

A commonsense use of garden lighting is to illuminate walkways, protecting your delicate landscaping plants as well as preventing accidents. Styles appropriate for this kind of lighting include entrance or tier lighting. Both are a series of small shades atop a foot-long pole that cast light down and away, creating a wide circle of light on the ground. Solar-powered lighting is a practical and easy to install, giving effective for delineating a driveway or path. Art Perez, consultant lighting design expert for HGTV.com landscaping, suggests that although solar landscape lights are inexpensive and easy to install, you may not be as pleased with the light output. Perez suggests setting the lights in a southern exposure, as other locations will not fully charge the lights' power cells.

References

• HGTV.com: Lighting Your Backyard
• Better Homes and Gardens: Landscape Lights Day and Night
• Better Homes and Gardens: Low-Voltage Outdoor Lighting