Make an Impact With Landscape Lighting

For many homeowners, their landscape lighting serves only as a function to help make their property easy to traverse at night. However, it can be so much more than that. Your landscape lighting can help to highlight the most visually interesting parts of your property, thereby helping to boost your curb appeal and make your outdoor area more enjoyable to spend time in during the evenings or nights.

The following are a few tips on how you can get the most out your landscape lighting.

Use LED lighting

You could use CFLs or incandescent lights for your outdoor lighting; however, even though they are initially cheaper, you’re better off going with LED lights for the following reasons:

• LED lights are higher quality – LED lights produce a higher quality light that can be easily controlled. Not only can LED lights be dimmed, but they can also be programmed to change colors.
• LED lights are safer – LED lights don’t break the way CFLs and incandescent bulbs do, which means that they won’t pose a safety risk if they experience a hard impact. Additionally, they don’t give off heat, which means there’s no risk of fire or heat damage.
• LED lights last longer – LED lights last at least 25,000 hours, three times as long as CFLs and 21 times longer than incandescents.
• LED lights cost less over the long run – LEDs are much more energy efficient, which means your lighting bills will be significantly lower.

Where to add lighting

There are a number of different areas where you should add lighting throughout your landscape. The following are a few spots to concentrate on:

• Paths – Make sure your pathways are safe to walk down at night by using downlights, which will light up the walkways without flooding the space with light.
• Entryways – Flank your doorways with lights to highlight your entrances, making them easy to find and providing a focal point on your home.
• Decks and patios – Use a combination of task lighting that makes your decks and patios easy to use as well as ambient lighting to create the type of mood you want to make the space more enjoyable to use (such as for social occasions).
• Architectural features – Emphasize some of your favorite architectural features using light. For example, aiming a wide beam of light at a wall to create a wash. This will create shadows that are visually interesting as well.
• Highlight landscape features – Use uplights to highlight trees, bushes, and other features you want to showcase.

Avoiding outdoor light pollution

Outdoor light pollution occurs when you have too much light coming from your landscape. This can result in light disrupting your home and the homes of your neighbors at night can make it difficult to see while traversing your property, and takes away from the relaxing atmosphere that a dark night full of bright stars can provide. The following are a few tips for avoiding light pollution:

• Position your fixtures so that light doesn’t spill outside the space you’re trying to light.
• Use reflectors and shielding to concentrate the light where you want it to go.
• Use separate zones throughout your landscape that you can control individually using dimmers, timers, and motion sensors so that you can turn off or turn down certain lights.
• Use lower wattage when possible to prevent harsh light.

These are just some of the things that you can do with your landscape lighting to help improve your property’s aesthetic as well as its general safety and security. For more information on how you can improve your landscape lighting, be sure to contact us at Snyder’s Landscapes today.