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Garden Lighting – How To Choose It?
Getting your outdoor lighting right might be tricky, as it's rather easy to overdo it (especially if it's your first time) and end up with excess light washing instead of subtle, functional ambiance. Here's a quick guide on how to light up your garden.
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Planning Your Garden Lighting
It's important to decide what exactly you want to light up and where. Start from identifying key features of your garden and start planning around them. You should keep in mind that outdoor lighting is a sequential endeavor – first, you'd need to take care of safety lights, then security lights, leaving decorative lights for last.
So your first goal should be to illuminate pathways and driveways, stairs (especially if they aren't obvious) and any potentially hazardous garden features, e.g., bodies of water, uneven terrain, or things that you could trip on in the dark.
When it's been taken care of, you should consider adding security lights around your property - for example, wall lights work great for both decoration and keeping unwanted “night guests” at bay. Consider using motion sensors or timers to make sure the lights will turn on by themselves when needed.
While placing these types of lights (especially those with focused beams), remember not to point them directly into someone's bedroom (including your neighbors'). After that, you can work on adding some oomph to your garden by sprinkling it with some ambient color (e.g., with fairy lights) or highlighting your favorite features, like a splendid tree, sculptures, or particularly interesting architectural details.
Just remember not to get carried away with it - less is more and there's no point in lighting up every single point of your outdoor space. It's also recommended to use multitasking lights to keep the costs at bay. You should also mix stationary lights with those that can be easily moved around to ensure flexibility of your lighting project.
Effects You Can Get With Outdoor Lights
A bad lighting effect can really dull the space, so choosing the right effect is crucial for any decorative lighting project. Here are some commonly used effects of garden lights and features they work best on:
- Uplighting - illuminates things from below and should be used to create a dramatic effect on large objects, like mature trees or statues.
- Downlighting - works well for doorways, or lighting up decked areas and patios. With smaller lights, you can show off particular points of interest, while the smallest ones can be attached to hardscape elements and used for defining areas with subtle glow.
- Crosslighting - achieved by putting spotlights on opposite sides of an object, this type of lighting makes that feature the centerpiece of the garden.
- Grazing - by placing uplights near a wall you can draw attention to its stone work - the rougher the surface, the better the effect will be.
- Silhouetting - by placing a spread light (aimed at the vantage point but not visible to the observer) between an object and the adjacent structure you can highlight shapes not visible during the day by creating its silhouette against a soft background. Works well with natural objects or complicated sculptures.
- Shadowing - by placing a spotlight at its foot, you can project a feature's shadow onto a flat surface. Works particularly well with open-branched trees and uncommonly shaped sculptures.
- Mirroring - is about creating reflections on a dark body of water by lighting an object on its far side.
- Washing - by placing a floodlight aimed at a wall or a hedge you can create a soft glow over a big area near it.
What Kinds of Lights Will Work in Gardens?
This depends largely on the light's purpose - different types of lamps/fixtures will work in path lighting, stair safety, decorations, ambient lighting, etc. Here's a quick summary of what lights work well in a given situation:
- Pathway lights - path lights, stake lights, smaller post lights.
- Driveways - post lights, inground lights.
- Stairs and banisters - deck lights, string lights, tape lights, mini spotlights.
- Security lighting - floodlights and spotlights.
- Small alcoves/long stretches of space - post/bollard lights (including lanterns), floodlights (especially when pointed at a wall to wash the area with light).
- Accent lighting - lamps/fixtures with gentle glow, e.g., deck lights, hardscape lights, pond lights.
No matter what kind of lights you're looking for, while browsing for outdoor lights you should always check the fixtures' IP rating. Those two numbers tell you how good they are withstanding the elements.
The first one stands for protection from solid objects (like sand and dust) and can go up to 6. The second indicates the moisture resistance and goes up to 8. For example, a decent, splashproof lamp would be designated as IP44, while a waterproof fixture would have an IP rating of 67.
Mains, Solar or Battery-Powered?
Another important part is choosing the power supply. This decision depends heavily on what you're planning to do with your outdoor lighting.
If you want a permanent installation near your house, mains-powered lighting would be a good solution. Thanks to getting power straight from your home's electrical grid, this type of light will be the most reliable choice, as they'll give off consistent and bright light on any occasion.
Unfortunately, their proper installation will require the help of a professional electrician, and they will add to your electrical bill. To reduce running costs, consider buying LED lights and bulbs - though their initial cost is higher, they require far less power to run, saving you money later on.
Solar lights are portable, very easy to install (both on the ground or structures), and by far the cheapest and most eco-friendly option for outdoor lighting, as they use power stored during the day to illuminate your yard at night. They work automatically, so they're ideal for low-maintenance garden lighting systems. Just keep in mind they require sunlight to operate, so they won't work as well in shaded areas and locations with shorter days or short periods of clear sky.
Battery-powered ones are highly portable and work best for short-term, casual use, e.g., during outdoor parties. Those types of outdoor lighting come in a wide variety of different shapes and sizes, ranging from big fixtures to small LED candles. Due to limited battery life, they aren't suited for task lighting but are great for occasional decorative purposes.
LED Lights - Best Outdoor Lighting Solution
When choosing light bulbs and lamps for your garden, you can't go wrong with LEDs. They might not be cheap to buy, but their longevity, low energy consumption and overall variety more than compensate for it. Even the solar-powered ones are bright enough to work as safety or display lights all across your garden. So if you need reliable lamps, look for those with LED bulbs.
About the Author Laura Bennett
Hello, I’m Laura Bennett. I love nature especially when it comes to flowers and different kinds of plants. I started a very small garden behind my house and I named it Humid Garden. So, I created this blog to provide aspiring and inspiring thoughts about gardening for gardeners and anyone who has the intention of keeping a garden.
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