July 4, 2010 | In: Garden Design
Using Landscape Lighting To Great Effect
Making your garden to look just the way you want it to is not only not easy, but it is an on-going battle against weeds, pests and disease, so once you have great garden, the next stage is how to show it off it under all lighting and weather conditions. This piece of writing is about just that: how to use landscape lighting to great effect.
One aspect of landscape lighting is called accent lighting. This type of lighting is employed to subtly light up bushes or flowers along with other things. You can also light up a snow storm or rain, it gives a beautiful effect, but this takes more powerful lighting such as flood lights.
The issue is that you do not have to have the splendour of your garden on display for only the day light hours, you can also get plenty of enjoyment out of it in the evenings and even at night; in the summer and in the winter.
There is a huge range of landscape lighting. For instance, there are lamps, lanterns, floodlights and spotlights and they can be powered by mains electricity or by the sun. Clearly, if you want to use mains electricity, you will need to have an electrician lay armoured cable in your garden, which can be costly and is more or less permanent.
The other option is solar powered lighting, which is movable. If you position it somewhere and then change your mind, you can move it yourself and there are no electricity running costs. Solar powered light fittings are more expensive than standard ones, but all in all, taking into account the electrician’s fees and the on-going electricity bill, solar powered units work out cheaper. Plus, you will be doing something for the environment that every gardener is doing his or her best to take care of.
This article is not concerned with security lighting, but landscape lighting does have a spin-off by adding extra security to your property. Before buying any landscape lighting, you ought to have a good idea of what you are looking for.
There are several ways of going about this. You could first of all draw a plan of your garden and photocopy it a couple of times so that you can commit your thoughts to paper.
You could take a walk around your local neighborhood and pick up ideas by observing neighbours’ gardens. You could go look at how the council lights its parks and public buildings and you could buy a few landscaping magazines to see the latest items on the market.
It is also worth going to a few gardening centres, because they will also be showing off their wares to their full advantage. As you get ideas, pencil them in on one of your photocopies. If you want to test a few ideas very approximately, you could put a suitable flashlight under a bush that you think would benefit from landscape lighting and observe it. If you do not like it erase it from your plan and try something else.
Once you are happy with your plan, go out and buy the requisite lighting. If they are mains supplied you will need an electrician, if they are solar powered you do not. If you try some of these ideas you will soon learn how to use landscape lighting to great effect.
Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is at present involved with outdoor accent lighting. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Outdoor Wall Lamps.
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