Landscape Lighting Ideas

Landscape lighting ideas should produce a lighting plan that is both beautiful and functional. It should be lovely to look at and experience.

It should also be designed to provide safety as one moves about when it is dark outside.

Here are some landscape lighting ideas that I use in my designs.

Use Path Lights to light up walkways. If the diameter of light produced is 10', the fixtures would be placed 10' apart on center, or just a little closer so the edges of light overlap slightly. If doing this yourself, it is important to find out the amount of light produced by the fixtures you are considering. This way you won't make a mistake by placing the lights too far apart.

Generally fixtures lower in height provide smaller areas of light.However, I try to find a happy medium, since I would like the fixtures to be insignificant. When using path lights, try to alternate and stagger their placement on either side of the walkway so that a "runway" effect is not created.

You can plan on placing the lights approximately 10' to 15' apart, depending on the lighting fixture. Path lights should be placed in planting beds. If placed in lawn, they are too obvious and also may be hit by the lawn mower.

Up Lights can create beautiful lighting on ornamental trees, lighting the trunks, branches, flowers, and leaves. You may use anywhere from one to three lights per tree. I normally like to use two.

Accent Lighting is similar to up lighting and can be used to accent a special garden feature, such as a sculpture. You might have something in your garden that is special that would look nice with soft light cast on it.

Down Lighting or "moon" lighting can be used high up in large trees. Light is cast downward ...creating "moonlight". This lighting can be beautiful. The light it creates can also become part of the light needed at night in a functional way. However, be aware of the fact that you will have to get up in that tree to change the bulb.

Architectural lighting is used to cast light on a residence or other building. This is mostly aesthetic.

Post lights are another option. They typically use 120v and provide more light than many of the other types of fixtures. Gas light fixtures are becoming popular again. They are quite charming. Go to my page where you can read about the outdoor gas light.

So for some general landscape lighting ideas, here is what a pretty landscape lighting plan might comprise of:

1. Balance the lighting throughout the property. Provide some light on both the right and left sides of the house and property.
2. Use up lighting and moon lighting if you have a large tree.
3. If there is an ornamental tree near the front door, uplight it.
4. You now have landscape lighting in three sectionsof your property. This is a nice balance.
5. For the walkway, lighting is placed at intervals to give enough light.
6. If there is an area where there is no planting bed and it is a spot where a lighting fixture is desired, I will often create at least a small bed specifically for the lights.
7. In addition, occasionally I will "steal" some of the up lighting if it is nearby.

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