Tundraco's Daily Living Guide to Home & Garden Landscape Lighting

When landscaping, you put a lot of time and effort into choosing the right materials and setting them out in a pleasing and functional manner. What many people overlook is how their landscape design will function at night. If nighttime functionality is not taken into consideration, often the only lighting available is a porch light that casts the landscaped area in shadows. However, with proper planning and the judicial use of lighting, you can enhance your overall landscape design.

• According to the U.S. Department of Justice, outdoor lighting can also be an effective security tool.

When lighting a landscape, temporary or permanent lighting can be used. Temporary lighting includes torches, candles, holiday decorations, and mobile lights that can be rented. Temporary lighting sources are often used for parties or other occasional outdoor activities. Permanent lighting sources include any lighting fixtures that are an integral part of the landscape.

• Low-voltage:many outdoor lighting options are high voltage products. These high voltage lighting sources often need special transformers and electrical lines to safely carry the voltage. Low-voltage lighting options, on the other hand, can often be run off normal household current – 120 volts. In addition, low-voltage lights cost less to run, relative to electric costs.
• Automatic Lights:outdoor lighting can be placed on a timer that will turn the lights on and off at a specific time. Many outdoor lights also come with optional light or motion detectors. Light sensors will turn the lights on when the natural ambient lighting drops to a predetermined level. Lights with motion detectors will turn on automatically when movement is detected.
• Wet Use:If you are going to be using your lights in an area that is likely to become wet, or underwater, be sure use lights that are rated for use in wet areas.

Choose fixtures that are esthetically pleasing and ones that match your overall architectural and landscaping plan. Your goal in choosing fixtures should be to enhance your landscape design and to allow you to safety use your outdoor areas at night. You should not over light an area. Lighting your yard like a baseball field will overpower your landscape design and will disturb your neighbors. The International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) and the New England Light Pollution Advisory Group both recommend the use of subdued lighting to minimize light pollution.

• Accent Lights:are used to highlight a specific landscape or architecture feature.
• Downlights:these are overhead lights that are intended to provide sufficient illumination for an activity to be carried out and are often mounted on the side of a building or on a tall pole. These are also called floodlights.
• Step lights:these are used to illuminate steps both for safety and as an architectural element.
• Decorative lights:are often used solely as accent pieces in their own right.
• Inground Lights:are planted in the ground and provide ambient illumination.
• Surfaced mounted lights: are lights mounted on the side of a structure.
• Facade lights:these are lights that are used to illuminate a structure.
• Bollards:are low-level lights used to illuminate walkways.
• Post Tops:these are lighting fixtures that are affixed to poles, often not much above shoulder or head-height.
• Bullet lights:are small bullet-shaped lights that are mounted on swivels, allowing them to be manually directed.

Costs for landscape lighting can vary greatly from less than $100 to several thousands. Cost will depend on the type and number of lights, installation complications, and whether you install the lights yourself or hire a contractor.

• You can minimize your costs by installing your lighting fixtures at the same time you begin landscaping. If installed after the landscaping in completed you may have to remove existing plantings or disturb walkways in order to bury wires or mount the lights.
• When planning your lighting scheme, consider not only the cost of the fixtures and the installation, but also the long term cost to run and maintain those fixtures.
• What is the life expectancy of the bulbs? How much will it cost to replace the bulbs? Will you be able to replace them yourself or will you need to hire someone to do the work for you?
• What are the electrical costs involved?
• If you have kids or energetic neighbors, you may also want to consider the durability of the lighting fixtures and the likelihood that they will suffer damage from miss-thrown balls or errant bicycles.