How To Choose The Right Lighting For Your Landscaping
BMNL
One of the key discussions you will have with your landscapers when deciding what features you want for your new landscaped garden is lighting. First, you have to decide whether you want any lighting or not, and then there are hundreds of choices of lighting types to go through to select which types you will have, where they will be located, and how they are to be powered.
While some lighting that you include in your landscape design is similar to the lighting you may have indoors, for the most part, there are several differences, all of which you must be aware of. This is why selecting lighting for a landscaped garden takes considerable thought. To help you with that task, Principal Landscapes has provided some useful pointers and some advice on lighting for landscaping.
Ways To Illuminate A Landscaped Garden
There are several ways to illuminate a landscaped garden.
- Tree Lighting: This can highlight the trees in your garden and create an amazing effect. It only requires a single uplight for each tree which is usually white or amber, but in truth, it could be any colour.
- Deck Lighting: As much for practical reasons as well as decorative, lighting your decking using embedded lights in the paneling is eye-catching, especially around seating areas.
- Flower Bed Lighting: These can create the effect of making your garden feel larger than it is with lights set within your flower beds and angling upwards to the wall, fencing, or plants located behind.
- Walkway Lighting: These can look great, but at a more basic level walkway lights are essential for ensuring everyone can walk around your garden safely and without fear of tripping over an unseen object.
- Feature Lighting: These are the lights, often simple ones, that direct attention to the features and ornaments within your landscape design. They can be set at any height and of any colour depending on the specific feature.
- Decorative Lighting: This is lighting where you simply wish to make your landscaped garden more visually appealing by adding decorative lights. A prime example is string lighting along a fence or patio roof.
Types Of Lights Used For Landscaping
- LED Well Lights: These are mounted into the ground and are the ideal lighting type for illuminating the sides of your home, fencing, walls, or features within your landscape design.
- LED Spotlights: The main uses of LED spotlights are lighting trees, and garden ornaments, and if you have a larger garden, you might choose to have a fountain that is lit by LED spotlights. They can be mounted at any height.
- LED Floodlights: The beams on these are wide so they are ideal for lighting up larger areas and items within your garden. This can include the lawn area as well as larger bushes and shrubs.
- Waterproof Lighting: All of the previous three examples of LED lighting also have waterproof options. This means you can use the lighting in or around water features such as ponds, fountains, and swimming pools.
- Hardscape Lighting: This lighting will be attached to hard surfaces such as patios or walkways using brackets or mounting plates. You can also attach them to stone features within your landscaping such as walls and steps.
- Recessed Step Lights: To augment safety within your landscape design, the inclusion of recessed step lights is highly recommended. They can come in a variety of colours to add to the visual appeal of your garden.
- Motion Sensor Lights: Whilst you can have all your lighting switched on or off manually, an upgrade would be to have some of them activated by motion sensors. This will appeal to those who are security conscious as motion sensor lights act as a deterrent to unwanted intruders.
- Solar-Powered Lights: Those wanting a landscape design that is as environmentally friendly as possible, will love the idea of solar-powered lights which charge up during the day. This negates the need to use normal power from the house, plus it also reduces your power bills which is another positive.
