Landscape Lighting Techniques – Part 1

2021 has arrived and it is the perfect time to create a beautifully lit outdoor space – the one you’ve been desiring. With the right strategy, landscape lighting techniques will highlight your home’s distinctive features and draw attention to the areas you love most.

How to Feature Different Landscape Lighting Techniques

Draw attention to interesting shapes and silhouettes within your outdoor landscape by using this technique. Typically, a light source is placed behind plants, statues, or fountains, and adjacent to a wall or solid background. This allows the point of interest to be illuminated from the backside. With the lights concealed, you achieve an amazing effect, similar to naturally silhouetted shapes at dusk You only see the shape and not its details. It’s important to use the right bulbs when silhouette lighting. The goal is to create a wide band of clean white light that’s necessary for the right effect.

Silhouette Lighting Techniques

Draw attention to interesting shapes and silhouettes within your outdoor landscape by using this technique. Typically, a light source is placed behind plants, statues, or fountains, and adjacent to a wall or solid background. This allows the point of interest to be illuminated from the backside. With the lights concealed, you achieve an amazing effect, similar to naturally silhouetted shapes at dusk You only see the shape and not its details. It’s important to use the right bulbs when silhouette lighting. The goal is to create a wide band of clean white light that’s necessary for the right effect.

Grazing

Grazing adds depth and dimension to objects with texture, like tree bark, masonry walls, and architectural accents. Position the light at the base of a textured surface and point it straight up so it’s parallel. The key here is using this technique on surfaces such as stucco, brick, stonework, veneer, gabion, and organic objects. Smooth surfaces are not recommended for grazing. Another benefit of grazing is that the placement of bulbs ensures not having a bright light shining directly in your eyes.

Spot Lighting Techniques

Spotlighting, also referred to as accent lighting, delivers light to permanent and semi-permanent installations, by focusing a very bright, narrow beam on the desired focal point. Spotlighting is a great technique for drawing attention to large mature trees, statues, and flagpoles.

Downlighting

Downlighting, also known as area lighting, is just like it sounds. You place a light source high up, inside a feature like a trellis, tree, roof line, patio cover, or garden wall, and cast light downwards over a specified area. Downlighting can be used to highlight pathways, steps, flowerbeds, entrances and exits. You can control the size of the illumination by adjusting the light fixture lower or higher. This technique also provides safety and security due to its broad illumination.

Moonlighting

Moonlighting is like downlighting, but uses soft light sources positioned extremely high up, and angled downwards. Moonlighting is popular due to its natural and brilliant lighting effect, creating wondrous shadows and patterns on the ground below. This lighting technique mimics the charming effect of moonlight, casting subtle shadow patterns.

Read Part 2 of our Landscape Lighting Techniques and What They Can Do for You. In the meantime, check out our tips when choosing your landscape lighting techniques:

• Consider your neighbors. Have the common courtesy to position lights so they do not shine into neighbors’ windows.
• Mix the techniques! Experiment and use a combination of lighting effects to see which approach works best.
• Conceal your lighting source, when possible, to enhance the effect.
• Remember, a little light goes a long way when it’s dark. Don’t overdo it.
• Include an automatic timer to turn lights on and off, this convenience will go a long way.

Are you interested in exploring how the right landscape lighting techniques can work for you?

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