
The emphasis in recent years on low voltage lighting has transformed ideas about illuminating the landscape. Used for drama, special effects, safety, security, and even under water, it is a versatile and artistic design tool. Lighting adds property value by enhancing the architecture of your home and extending enjoyment of your outdoor spaces and landscape.
Features of your home and landscape beautifully come to life with the appropriate and well planned use of lighting. There are specific light fixtures to create effects such as grazing the fronts of low shrubs, up-lighting the corners of the home or tall trees to add height and dimension, or bringing a soft glow to a pathway. Locating and aiming the fixtures is an important part of the installation process.
To accent foliage, lighting can bring attention to seasonal features of plants and trees that would otherwise be missed in the darkness of night. Highlighting the exfoliating bark of a crepe myrtle or river birch, adding a twinkle to the red berries of a Hawthorne tree or Winterberry holly, or accenting the beautiful blooms of perennials and annuals are just a few of the possible horticultural effects. These various features, although very nice during the day, take on a bit of magic when illuminated in the night. Your eye is always drawn to the light, and in turn to the specific features you chose for accentuation.
Lighting for outdoor rooms specifically can have a conventional approach depending on the type of design and enclosure, or can be avant-garde with fixtures hung from tree limbs, mounted to columns, posts, or walls, and in unexpected places. Light fixtures may be integrated into stairways or retaining walls for safety and interest. Lighting plays an important role is establishing a mood and in creating visual movement, and adds the finishing touch to any hardscape or landscape design.
If you plan to have lighting professionally installed, it’s important to know the credentials and expertise of the company and crew you plan to contract with, in lighting design as well as any project. Some landscape lighting companies with actually do a mock installation to give you the full effect of the proposed lighting design. That gives the opportunity to make any needed adjustments before the actual installation is completed.
Thanks to Inaray lighting of Richmond, Virginia for the top and bottom photo.
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