The Do’s and Don’ts of Landscape Lighting

Landscaping is a delicate business. If you want the perfect backyard, there’s a lot of time and attention that goes into planning your landscape, which is why you should know everything you should and shouldn’t do.

Landscape lighting isn’t just about where to place your lights. It’s about choosing the lighting, hue, and placement that will create the best ambiance for your needs and desires.

Below, you can read about the dos’s and dont’s of landscape lighting.

The Do’s

Let’s start with the do’s so that you have a good idea on where to start.

Do #1: Don’t stick to one kind of light. If you only have one kind of light in your landscape design, you’ll quickly find that it’s being drowned by the same shades and there isn’t enough lighting to create a variety. Lighting is great for emphasising, which becomes difficult to do when you don’t have a distinct way to do so.

Do #2: Play with your shadows. You shouldn’t just be thinking about light when you’re creating your landscape. When you have walls, for example, you can try to get low lights that point upward to emphasise a structure or design in your wall through this play on shadow and light.

Do #3: More fixtures, less light. If you’re trying to save money by decreasing the number of fixtures you get by increasing the intensity of the lights in each fixture, you should actually be doing the opposite. By increasing the intensity of the light, you limit your ability to create variety throughout your property.

Do: #4: Light up your tree. While some people will just hang lights in tree branches, but you should try to throw some around your entire trunk. This adds ambiance to your backyard.

The Don’ts

Now that you have a few do’s, let’s move on the the things you shouldn’t do if you’re trying to create good landscape lighting.

Don’t #1: Don’t only light walkways and trees. You’d be surprised by how many people do this, but what you’re actually doing is lighting up a few parts of your yard and leaving the rest in darkness.

Instead, consider placing lights around your garden and around your property.

Don’t #2: Use the same lighting for walkways and stairs. The shadows will look different for both of these, which is why you want to have different lighting.

Don’t #3: Use bullet lights for everything. While they are versatile, you should remember that bullet lights are basically spotlights. You should use them to show off the grand parts of your home, not everything.

Don’t #4: No solar lights! Solar lights depend completely on the weather, which is why you’re better off keeping anything solar to your roof and to small parts of your home. Solar lights aren’t dependable, have low intensity, and they may not work at night.

Conclusion

Everyone should have the backyard they want. If you’re looking into your landscaping options, you should really be considering your landscape lighting. You can have the nicest landscape in the world, but it won’t better if you don’t show it off properly.

In our above guide, we’ve provided you with the best do’s and don’ts of landscape lighting. Overall, though, you should avoid solar lights, bullet lights, the same lights for everything, and you should place the lights all over your property. You should, on the other hand, be versatile, play with your shadows, light up your trees, and use plenty of fixtures.