Unique Outdoor Lighting Ideas

When it comes to lighting and landscape, you should know that a little goes a long way. Planning your outdoor lighting should be fun and easy, walk around your garden or yard and envision how you want your spaces and lights positioned and decorated.

Basics

Remember that how light is seen during the day is different at night, more so when dealing with lighting pathways and outdoor spaces. However, the basics of lighting remain true for almost all kinds of light.

It may be indoors or outdoors, but lighting is basically divided into three layers when it comes to function.

Overall: giving light to a whole space or room
Task: lighting for a specific purpose like pathways and flowerbeds
Accent: using spotlights or floodlights give accent to an object or area

There are many different kinds of bulbs and light that you can use to make a space beautiful and enchanting.

There are also different ways of using light to enhance the beauty of a space or area, whether as a whole, as an accent or as a highlight.

Up-lighting is about how low-voltage fixtures with led or halogen bulbs give light to trees from below, helping highlight shape and trunk structure. By placing a couple of light fixtures at the bottom of the tree and by pointing lights upward, you help put focus on the tree’s trunk structure. Placing fixtures 8-10 feet away from the trunk best captures the tree’s canopy and shows off leaves and branches. Try using fixtures with convex lens for irrigation water to run off the lens.

Moonlighting is placing fixtures in high places, like that of a tree, and pointing it downward. This is done to down-light a patio. By placing multiple fixtures and cross lighting the light down on the hardscape below, leaves and branches create interesting shadows on patios and mimic the moon’s light.

Silhouetting spreads light and has fixtures places between different kinds of structures such as plants and fountains. This gives an effect where the object is silhouetted in black in contrast to a soft white background. This is perfect when you want to backlight a wall or a house, thus creating a silhouette effect. You may need multiple fixtures based on the amount of wall light you need.

Shadowing is a technique that when light washes a feature of a tree or statue to create a shadow on walls or fences. It creates an intriguing effect as there is play between light and darkness, especially when the object is affected by breeze. You can also achieve a dramatic, larger than life effect when you light objects from low down and angling it upward.

Grazing is used in highlighting objects with interesting textures or stone work by using spread-lights or up-lights and placing them upward and right next to walls with beams. Doing this casts a shadow that gives a delicate effect to the objects. This is best done to showcase statues and pilasters.

Remember that planning and mapping out how to best light your outdoor spaces give you the best opportunity of highlighting areas and making them more beautiful. Try not to overdo your lighting and remember that sometimes less is more.

Be sure to talk to lighting specialists from Pro Landscape Lighting Services for a free onsite consultation. Call them at (480) 634-8060 for your schedule and share your creative inputs with our team!