Landscape Lighting

You've pulled out all the stops to make your house and yard look fantastic. So why let that hard work disappear at nightfall when, with a flick of a switch and some strategically placed Landscape lighting, you can roll back the darkness and put it all on display?

Done right, landscape lighting makes the best of what you've got by highlighting your home's architectural features and drawing attention to prized plantings and trees.

There are many benefits of landscape lighting, but two majors are:

1. Helps to improve the safety and security of your home.
2. Adds functionality and beauty at night.

Most landscape lighting today is low voltage, and with good reason. Unlike 120-volt systems, it's safer to work with and less costly to install. And though low-voltage lights receive one-tenth the power, thanks to a step-down transformer, there's no limit to the effects they can achieve, from ethereal moonlight beamed down from a tree canopy to a subtle glow that washes over a low garden wall. More than just picking the right hardware, a pleasing lighting scheme is also about artistry

Here are the most common areas to light:

• Pathways are important both for safety and for beauty, but you don’t always need to use path lights right along the side. DuBreuil suggests mixing directional path lights with ambient lighting within the landscaped bed for a more natural look.
• Patios are where we spend time with family and have conversations, so diffuse downlighting from above gets that moonlit effect
  without blinding people.
• Trees are an ideal candidate for uplighting or crosslighting. “When
  there’s a unique branch structure or colored bark, it makes an ideal focal point,” says Snyder. You can also create downlighting effects by placing lights within tree branches and aiming them downwards at a patio or garden bed.
• Water features can be lit as well. While we don’t think of electricity and water as natural partners, in fact many landscape lights are meant for underwater use. “We nestle lights in between rocks so you see the effect of the light without seeing the fixtures,” says Barton.
• Architectural elements on the home can also be lit to great effect. “If you have a $500 tree and a $500,000 home, why would you focus only on the tree?”. “I like to light up pillars, stacked stone, or other architectural features.”
• Driveways don’t need a lot of lights, as most people using a driveway will have their headlights on. But you can beautify the journey to the home by lighting the landscape nearby.

Should You Pay More for LEDs?

With no filament to break or burn out, LEDs can last 40,000 hours, approximately 20 years of regular use, compared with just two years for halogen bulbs. LEDs are also extremely efficient, sipping 1 to 11 watts of power versus 20 to 60 watts for halogens. That means lower installation costs due to smaller transformers and cables, lower operating costs, and reduced maintenance, for up to a 50-percent savings over halogen systems in the course of 15 years.