How Lighting Can Impact Your Landscaping

Achieving the perfect outdoor lighting for your home requires a true blend of art and science. When lighting design is carefully paired with landscape design, something magical happens. As you work with a professional lighting company like Decorating Elves to paint your nighttime landscape with the beautiful accents of light, take these tips and ideas into consideration. 

Using the Right Type of Spotlight

Some fixtures in your landscape will need overall lighting coverage, others will require focal lighting, and some will thrive in task lighting. Properly matching each fixture with the right source of lighting will strengthen and improve your entire outdoor lighting arrangement. Small trees, for example, need one or two 250 lumen uplights, while taller trees require up to five uplights of higher strength. Your patio, meanwhile, will benefit from a moonlight effect when downlights are placed in surrounding tall trees. The stairs, in particular, need to be given special attention with wall lights integrated into an adjacent retaining wall and by hanging downlights from a nearby tree. 

Forms of Uplighting and Downlighting

By expertly utilizing uplighting and downlighting in the right place, you can add a subtle, yet appealing emphasis to any element of your exterior. 

Highlighting is a form of uplighting best used on trees, plants, boulders, and other such structures that is achieved by placing two lighting fixtures at the base of a structure. Just don’t use this technique too much, or its power becomes dulled. Silhouetting is an alternative uplighting technique that can bring the spotlight to dense plant material by illuminating a wall behind the plant. Scalloping, meanwhile, adds texture and interest to a long wall when lighting fixtures are placed at points along the base of the wall and pointed upwards. 

Moonlighting, on the other hand, is a downlighting strategy for trees, lawns,and dense foliage. To accomplish moonlighting, it is best to install lighting fixtures high above the target, usually in a tree, with a maximum light angle of 30 degrees. Accenting is the second most popular form of downlighting that brings beauty to topiary, boulders, and unique pieces of exterior art. To do this, a simple and remote light source with a narrow beam shines on the object with the help of silhouetting.

The experts at Decorating Elves are here to help you achieve all of these lighting designs and much more. We will work with you to achieve the lighting landscape you have always wanted. Call (727) 418-4127 today to begin transforming the aesthetics of your outdoor environment.