How to Display Garden Lights Properly

A garden is a place for releasing stress and bonding relationship. Enjoying delicious foods and beautiful landscape is grateful for most people, especially at good weather night. Lighting enables people to savor their garden without darkness limitation. Homeowners are able to beautify their home and increase home value with garden lights. Besides, lighting enhances safety and security by improving vision ability and surrounding illumination.

However, all these benefits are based on proper garden lights display. There are various types of garden lights, such as bollard lights, wall pack, fixtures, deck lights, etc. To display garden lights properly, garden lighting principles should be taken into account. We should also select the right type of garden lights that are applicable to specific object and area in the garden.

Garden lighting principles

Lighting principles are related with the purpose of garden light. The basic purpose of garden lighting is to increase vision ability. Therefore, the key principle is ‘safety first’. As an outdoor area, garden lighting has the risk of nuisance lighting, which should be avoided. Furthermore, less quantity but more efficient garden lights should be used to save cost and energy. Lastly, think about the consistency and perspective of the whole garden lighting. A well displayed garden lighting system has perfect visual effects from every viewing point.

Safety first

Garden lighting allows people to extend activities from home to outdoor in the evening. Safety is the primary factor for garden lights display. It is the illumination but not appearance of lighting fixtures that is vital to safety. Sufficient illumination provides clearer visibility and brighter environment for people. Pathway, fence and door are supposed to be installed with lighting fixture as they are critical areas for safety and security.

Brighten up the exterior spaces can be a deterrent for burglars. Since garden lights are faced with the challenges of sunlight, rain, or even extreme temperature, resistance (water, corrosion, high temperature) is irreducible. Another factor should be accounted is the electric safety. Wiring and installation are better done by professional workers.

Avoid nuisance lighting

We live in a correlative world where we are connected with other people and natural environment. Wherever the garden lights are set, nuisance lights should be avoid. There is a table about the nuisance lights.

Areas	Nuisance lighting
Residential parcel, nature preserve,  waterway	Illuminance exceeds 0.2 footcandles
Nonresidential property or public right-of-way	Illuminance exceeds 0.5 footcandles
Neighboring property or roadways	Glare that causes discomfort, impaired visibility, or annoyance

 

As showed from the table, illuminance of garden lights can’t exceed certain value. Over lighting is not only a waste of money but also the energy. Unshielded lighting fixtures will make the problems even worse. Choosing the shielded lighting fixture with sufficient but not excessive illuminance can solve the problem.

Display lights only in necessary areas

As the saying goes, less is more. Homeowners may display too many lighting fixtures to beautify their garden. However, more lighting fixtures do not mean better visual effect, everything in the garden is lit up like daytime will only result toneless lighting effect. The charming point of nigh garden is the contrast of light and darkness. In consequence, we should only display lighting fixtures in necessary areas. Think about the most attractive areas or the most interesting objects in your garden and then highlight them. Not all the empty places or objects need to be fixed with fixture.

For the places are of low or even no activity and irrelevant with security issues, there is no need to install lighting fixture. A well performed garden lighting system is capable of maximize lighting effect with minimum lighting fixtures.

Consider perspective from various viewing points

Perspective of garden lighting effect is associated with the display of lighting fixtures. When you set the lighting fixtures in an area, consider the possible events and the visual experience of viewers.

Take patios as an example, will you have dinner, barbecue or playing sport in this area or just enjoy the sky and star at night? Lighting fixture type and illuminance needs vary from specific activity.

Visual experience includes visible scene that viewers see at home, in the garden, and outside the home. Nevertheless from which viewing points, viewers’ visibility cannot be blocked by over-bright illuminance or total darkness. The overall appearance of the garden should be continuously, comfortable and enjoyable.

Garden lights display ideas

Lighting techniques for garden lights includes spotlighting, up lighting, shadowing, moonlighting, path lighting, etc. Each area and object in the garden should be illuminated with appropriate lighting techniques. Wall, plants, and pathway are the objects that need to be highlighted by garden lights in common. It is important to learn about the applicable lighting fixtures and techniques for different objects. Following section will discuss the display ideas for former objects.

Wall

Wall is built for privacy and security in normal. It is a great deterrent for burglars and contributes to reduce criminal. Lighting creates atmosphere and increases home value in the evening. AGC provides FL39 RGBW lights with chromatic and dynamism lighting to boost nocturnal scene.

Grazing, wall washing, and wall lighting are three general lighting techniques that used for illuminating wall. Grazing captures the texture of wall (stone, stucco, and brick) and create irregular patterns. Fixtures are placed within 1 foot of walls and tilted to provide upward lights. Wall washing is used to lit up lower walls of the entrances or the gates. Position wall wash lights in front of the wall to provide even lighting distribution.

Wall lighting not only illuminates wall but also adjacent regions. Wall packs are installed on the top of the wall to provide wide spread of lighting. WP06 LED wall pack light is particularly designed for wall illumination. WP06 is slim and easy to install as well as remove with back plate.

Plants

Lighting techniques for plants are many and varied. Up lighting, moonlighting, and back lighting are main lighting techniques for plants.

Up lighting is utilized to highlight plants like tall trees with dramatic and natural lighting effect. Fixtures are placed about 5 feet away from dense plants or 8-10 feet for less dense plants, offering illumination from bottom to top. Moonlighting provides soft and natural lighting. Fixtures are installed on trees to illuminate branches, leaves and floor from top to bottom. Each tree is recommended to place with at least two fixtures for more charming lighting scenes. Back lighting enhances the shape of plants, especially the plants with particular appearance. Fixtures are hidden behind the plants and they are invisible for viewers.

Pathway

Illumination plays an important role for ensuring safety as people often walk along the pathway. Plants are also partly illuminated to improve scene occasionally. Comfortable visual experience and sufficient illuminance are the leading points of pathway lighting at night.

Most of pathway lights are shielded to prevent dazzling and glare that many cause visual fatigue. Qualified pathway lights should guide the way naturally as well as providing beautiful scenes for people. Bollard lights and post top lights are generally selected for lighting pathway. BL01 LED bollard light from AGC enhances aesthetic and creative garden while ensuring safety and visual comfortable. UST03 Lotus garden light is elegant and modern. Special smooth curvature of UST03 garden light prevents dust accumulation effectively, making easier maintenance.

For a simpler understanding, table of garden lights display ideas is as followed.

Area & Object	Lighting Technique	Lighting fixture
Wall	Grazing, wall washing, wall lighting	WP06 wall pack light, FL39 RGBW lights
Plant	Up lighting, moonlighting, back lighting	FL39 RGBW lights
Pathway	Path lighting	BL01 LED bollard light, UST03 Lotus garden light