The natural beauty of your landscape is something that should be embraced rather than left to wallow in the dark once night falls. Plants may look incredible throughout the day in the sunlight, but the night scene could be unappealing. You can remedy a bad lighting theme with a combination of lighting strategies that will give your landscape the visual depth it needs to be both beautiful and practical. You can bring out the beauty of your landscaping: five landscape lighting ideas for plantings in Croton and Somers, NY.
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First… move away from the flood light.
While it’s easily the most common landscape lighting tactic out there, flood lights are about as electrically and practically inefficient as they come. This outdated tactic typically involves one or a few bright light sources mounted high, shining at an angle towards the ground. As people walk toward the light, they are blinded; and as people walk away from it, their own shadows will obscure what’s in front of them. This approach also does nothing to accentuate the plantings: since they are lit from above, the effect is “flat” and boring; and because the light is so bright, the surrounding areas look overly dark by contrast which is not a welcoming or pleasing look.
Fortunately, the following techniques will create a nice layered effect.
Pathway Lighting
The landscape lighting strategy begins with proper lighting for safety. Use hard-wired pathway lights at the ground level along walkways and the patio to direct light energy toward the ground, not at people’s eyes. This will illuminate the walking surfaces where light is needed most. The decreased energy and more subtle light emitted by these light fixtures will make the entire landscape appear much more balanced and natural. Then, you can focus on artistic flair by highlighting plantings and other features.
Spotlighting
Certain plantings deserve to be highlighted to showcase their beauty after dark. Spotlights are fixtures that are often used to draw attention to special trees. Fixtures are placed at ground level and pointed upwards along the trunk of a tree, emphasizing the textures of the bark and casting interesting shadows higher in the canopy.
Moonlighting
Deciduous trees provide another fantastic opportunity for creating after-dark interest in the landscape. Moonlighting is a lighting technique that places a bluish light placed high up in the canopy and points the light downwards. As the light passes through the tree, it will filter through the branches and leaves to create a beautiful dappled effect on the ground below. In the slightest breeze, the light will become animated and make the landscape much more engaging.
Embedded Lighting
Masonry features make excellent housing for light fixtures. Retaining walls, outdoor kitchens, outdoor fireplaces,and water features can have LEDs (light-emitting diode) fixtures embedded in the masonry to provide subtle lighting without the clutter of stand-alone fixtures. These tiny and efficient light sources can maximize depth perception during nighttime and let the plantings sit proud in your landscape.
Filling in the Gaps
To best increase depth perception and bring out the nighttime beauty of your plantings, you could consider solar-powered lights as auxiliary accent lights. These lights aren’t intended to be primary sources of illumination, but simply to fill in the gaps to prevent a stark contrast between illuminated spaces and areas that aren’t illuminated at all. Reducing this contrast will make the entire space far more beautiful than you imagined before.
A word of caution: less is more when it comes to landscape lighting! Subtle lights will have a much more pleasing effect than more powerful lights.
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