Down Home Articles

Getting the most out of a landscape often involves focusing on the perfect lawn, beautiful flowerbeds, exotic plants and stonework. We devote a great deal of our energy to achieving both form and function, often at great expense, but what about when the Sun goes down? Do you just light up the areas of your garden you’ll occupy or do you go the extra mile and paint all that beautiful work with light?

Landscape lighting should always be approached with more than just utilitarian objectives in mind. As important as your grill and seating areas may be, they really are just functional. That beautiful shade tree or those ornamental plants deserve some after-hours love too, don’t they?

Using landscaping lights to bring out all that hard work at night does more than just call attention to your projects. It’s an entirely different world and mood after dark and you can use various lighting techniques to create a setting entirely unrealized during the day.

Moon-lighting, at least in terms of landscaping, isn’t about a spare job. It is the technique of mounting lights up in trees so that the light shines down through the branches. The resulting shadows and pool of light are absolutely magical, giving the tree and illuminated ground an enchanted forest look. Put a bench under the tree and you have a wonderful spot that entices guests to explore beyond the confines of your patio to chat in an intimate and inviting setting.

If your property is of sufficient size, use path lighting or tiki torches to invite guests to explore further into your garden. Guide them to your show plants, statuary and hidden nooks where they can chat (or cuddle) away from the crowd around the grill.

Speaking of statuary, any dramatic stonework or statue can benefit from up-lighting. Be careful to choose flattering lighting angles so as not to create a “Frankenstein” effect. For stonework or masonry, light plants so they cast dramatic shadows or angle the illumination to bring out the texture of the stone.

Finally, when placing any lighting don’t just pay attention to what you want to illuminate but also what you don’t want to illuminate. If your light spills over onto utilities, air conditioners, power lines and the like you’ll be calling attention to elements that only serve to destroy the mood you want to set. Tiki or patio torches will rarely cause this problem as it will only cast light so far, but a low-voltage landscape light should be placed and aim as much with shadow in mind as light.

Now that your home is completely decorated in your style, and you feel that is inviting to your guests, it’s probably time to start considering outdoor entertaining. And anyone who has tried to grill a nice steak outdoors at night knows that you need to install a garden light. Many homeowners are shifting to the outdoors, for as many months out of the year as they possibly can. Gone are the days when a patio table and a few chairs meant enjoying the outdoors. Nowadays, homeowners are building decks on different levels to house various different outdoor rooms, such as dining areas, kitchen areas and in living rooms. If you are going to go through all this trouble, consider that you must use garden lights to create mood.

There are several different types of garden lights that you can use to spruce up the look of your home’s outdoors at nighttime. First there is the so-called up light. This works by shining onto things that are well off the ground, such as a tree that flowers 20 or more feet high. The reverse is called the down light which is merely pointed downwards to cast an overshadow over a bush or garden gnome.

It can be spooky or serene depending on how you do it. Flooding garden lights will disperse themselves over a wide range of flowers and shrubbery, but they lack the focus of our next type. That would be the spotlight. All of these are great garden lighting devices which each do their own thing.

photo credit: dichohecho

When you talk about garden lights most people will simply think of those pretty soft lights that you see in people’s yards, patios or gardens. While they are nice, and add elegance and beauty to your home, they also serve another purpose, which is safety. If you’ve ever stumbled your way around a completely dark lawn you know how dangerous it can be. I experienced this myself when walking in the dark through a friend’s lawn. I stepped onto a sidewalk I didn’t know was there, with my foot half on and half off of the raised cement path and severely twisted my ankle.

Garden lights don’t typically put out a lot of light. However, even the soft glow they emit is enough to illuminate the basic outlines and shapes of an otherwise dark yard. They show where the driveway or sidewalk is, illuminate trees and shrubs, and make dangerous stairs or hills visible. It’s nice ot know that something that has such beauty can also make us safer.