When you plan your next landscape redesign, there’s one thing you can always be sure about: improving your landscape lighting can be the perfect finishing touch that all outdoor spaces need. Well-designed landscape lighting is not only essential for safety, but it’s also crucial to enjoying outdoor living, and of course welcoming guests and setting the mood for entertaining. Landscape designers and lighting professionals can transform a landscape that’s gorgeous during the day into one that’s dazzling at night. Here are eighteen landscape lighting options for your outdoor spaces in Huntington, NY.
Layers
Creating layers will create depth perception and illuminate the finer details that could otherwise be hidden. Focus most of the light on pedestrian areas, but tuck a few unobtrusive fixtures into the landscape to minimize a harsh transition between well-lit and dark spaces.
Backsplashing
Indirect light sources do a great job of adding dimension to an outdoor living space. Backsplashing is a lighting technique that uses a spotlight aimed at an angle onto a vertical surface such as the side of the house, a retaining wall, a large rock face, or a fence. The light will draw some attention to the surface it directly lights, but there’s a subtle benefit as well in the amount of ambient light this technique creates. Backsplashing can be achieved using spotlights either on the ground or hanging from above.
Interactive Glowing
Your outdoor lighting can be a fun and interactive experience. Pressure- or motion-activated sensors can trigger lights on both walkways and stairs around your landscape so that anyone who moves around the space feels the magic of your backyard. You can use all sorts of different colors in these light fixtures. Soon, you’ll watch as both kids and adults let out their playful side and realize how much fun your landscape can be.
Embedded Lighting
Sometimes, light fixtures that aren’t immediately visible can have the greatest impact. These include fixtures embedded into masonry: virtually invisible during the day, yet delivering light after sunset. You may not expect light to be coming from a masonry structure like a retaining wall, outdoor fireplace, or even your garden stairs. But, the effect is stunning. Embedding light fixtures in the various masonry features of your landscape is a great tactic to both decrease clutter, accentuate masonry textures, and protect the light fixtures themselves. Some embedded lights will illuminate the ground surface while others are designed to highlight the masonry structures while adding ambient light to the area. Landscape light fixtures can also be embedded in the borders of your paver walkway or driveway to safely guide drivers and pedestrians.
Hidden Lighting
Lighting technology has come a long way in recent years, especially with the development of light emitting diode (LED) lighting. There are more ways to achieve compact and energy efficient lighting than ever before. One proven successful tactic is by hiding lights inside rocks, which will draw attention to various landscape features. Better yet, these hidden lights won’t have any wiring or structure that gets in the way of the view. Plenty of creative solutions use real rocks so you’ll have no need to ever explain that one weird plastic rock that light is coming from.
Lanterns
Lanterns are always a popular lighting tactic and they have been for centuries. Each individual lantern can be a complex piece of work that draws attention to the craft and artistry of a blacksmith. Typically, lanterns are formed by a steel structure that surrounds four or more geometric glass windows. Inside, the source of light is sheltered and protected. Lanterns can be electric, gas-powered, or even hold candles inside. Electric lanterns may be hardwired or solar-powered to help illuminate key areas of your landscape.
Lighting by Zones
Good outdoor lighting design is all based around drawing attention to various places in a landscape and giving the right amount of light to each activity zone. Just like the home, you need well-lit areas and areas where lighting can - and should - be more subtle. Walkway lights are ideal for so many spaces that don’t require a lot of task lighting but still need to feel safe - such as a fire pit area. They also allow you to use fewer overhead lights, which illuminate not only the desired area but surrounding areas. Keeping lights close to the ground helps to keep the right amount of light in each zone without disturbing other zones. Even in the outdoor kitchen where you need task lighting, keep the lighting at eye level or lower such as backsplash-mounted task lighting.
Lighting with Fire
Fire light is the oldest form of light energy that humans have harnessed. It’s easy to imagine using primitive torches as a form of lighting a landscape, but that is a risky technique. Instead, use masonry fire features such as fire pits, fire tables, and outdoor fireplaces. Each one of these masonry fire features will create a substantial amount of both direct and indirect light in addition to the warmth and sense of community. Your fire feature can use either wood or gas as the main fuel.
Lighting with Sconces
Sconces create beauty and dimension in both indoor and outdoor lighting. In the past, these steel or stone structures mostly held candles or oil lamps. Today, LED lights add exactly the right amount of light in a carefree package (bulbs rarely need replacing more than once every 5-10 years). Sconces can aim light directly up, down, or in both directions. When placed on a wall, privacy fence, retaining wall, pillar, or post, sconces will help the light wash over the vertical surfaces above or below the sconce. Sconces can be used as a daytime decoration as well, falling into any sort of design scheme you use in your home and landscape.
Lighting with Water
Water has an impressive quality of reflecting and refracting light. Take advantage of this in your landscape lighting design. Water features such as fountains, waterfalls, and ponds are often designed with submersible lights. As the light passes through the water, it will bounce in all directions, creating a moody and exciting glow. Every ripple on the water’s surface will dance in the slightest breeze, shooting across your landscape to create quickly moving and subtle shadows. And light directed at the water’s surface will likewise have reflective and refractive qualities.
Moonlighting
Landscape designers use a lighting technique called moonlighting to add romance and intrigue. The technique involves setting a bright, bluish-white fixture high in the tree canopy. As the light filters through the branches and leaves of the tree, they create a unique moving tapestry of shadows on the ground. The slightest breeze will cause the light to dance as the tree sways. This technique is used for ambience only, not for practical purposes.
Overhead Lighting
One of the most common types of lighting, both indoors and outdoors, is overhead lighting set at least 8 feet off the ground to flood every surface with light. It’s an effective lighting tactic in plenty of situations, but it shouldn’t be the main tactic that’s used everywhere. In fact, overhead lighting has a potential to create a large amount of shadows which can obscure any walking surface. A great use for overhead lighting is beneath a pergola or pavilion, to illuminate that space. But use overhead lighting sparingly to avoid light intruding into quieter, darker areas.
Related: CREATE AN INSPIRING OUTDOOR SPACE WITH THESE LANDSCAPING IDEAS IN SOUTHAMPTON AND PORT JEFFERSON, NY
Projecting
Outdoor lighting doesn’t necessarily need to be static. Creating movement in your lighting scheme can have a dazzling effect on the experiences in your outdoor living space. Use light fixtures that will project images on your patio or wall surfaces. This can make the space feel even more dynamic and fascinating as you customize a light show for all sorts of gatherings.
Spotlighting
Spotlighting is an incredibly useful landscape lighting technique that uses bright lights set directly at the base of a vertical structure or feature, and angled up towards its top. It is often used to highlight a sculpture, waterfall, tree, rock outcrop, or any other treasured piece of your landscape that you want to showcase after dark Make sure to keep these bright lights far away from any eye contact (don’t, for example, use spotlights on a tree that is in the center of the patio; anyone walking around the tree could be blinded by the light).
String Lighting
Even though string lights are typically used for the holiday season, there are many types of string lights that can dramatically improve the feeling of an outdoor living space.There are many styles of string lights designed simply to bring warm, ambient light to an outdoor space. The bulbs can be of various sizes including large Edison bulbs with amber coatings to add to a warm atmosphere. You can either put up string lights to follow the boundary of a landscape feature or outdoor living space, or you can hang them across a patio to flood the area with warm light.
Uplighting
Just as the name suggests, uplighting is a lighting technique that points lights upwards. Still, it’s a little more complex than that. The main purpose of uplighting is to draw attention to vertical surfaces, such as the side of your home, a retaining wall, or a magnificent tree. Uplighting can greatly improve depth perception in your landscape and show everyone the beauty of your landscape and home. To achieve this, lighting designers will place one or several small light fixtures at the ground level and angle them upwards across the vertical surface.
Downlighting
Similarly, downlighting showcases textures but from above. This is a common technique used when embedding fixtures into a retaining wall or other masonry feature. The light shines directly downward to avoid glare, and just enough light will bounce off the surface to add ambient light in the immediate area.
Walkway Lighting
By far the most important landscape lighting tactic is prioritizing walkway lighting for safety. The space where people walk isn’t just limited to the walkways, and includes your patio, pool deck, and driveway. These spaces need to be illuminated for safety, and there are several ways to accomplish this. Place some low-lying lights along the boundaries of each of your paved surfaces. These lights should be shielded so the light is angled downwards and away from eye contact. Another technique is to embed lights in the walkway border itself, runway-style, to clearly define the perimeter.
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