Dramatic Landscape Lighting

While garden enthusiasts hate losing sight of their beautiful plantings when the sun goes down, night time is actually the best time to show off what you got.

The focus should not be on the light fixture, but rather the elements of your lawn and garden that you are most proud of. Rather than a glaring lamp post, light up a garden or a tree at the entrance of your driveway. Then lead people to your front door by casting intermittent light on an array of flowers and shrubs.

Nighttime lighting should not be designed to imitate the one-dimensional light of daytime. But, rather, It should be dramatic and lead you down a path of visual entertainment. This is accomplished by the contrast of dark areas and light areas, similar to stage lighting.

While some people feel that outside lighting is purely functional and seek to light the walkway only, this keeps your beautiful plantings in the dark and focuses on uninteresting elements of your exterior. Focusing light on the plantings also creates light that naturally spills onto the walkway providing more than enough light on your walkway.

So, when it comes to landscape lighting, choose fixtures that hide the light, because you do not want to focus your attention on a 95 cent light bulb. Then choose several elements of your landscape that you want to stand out and consider uplighting or downlighting them to give your specimens the attention they deserve.