The proper outdoor lighting can make your backyard a haven day or night. Along with making your outdoor space safer and improving security, landscape lighting can draw attention to architectural and landscaping elements.
Using a combination of lighting fixtures can help you create a comfortable, beautiful, and safe outdoor space.
Flood Lights
Flood lights are primarily used to illuminate large areas, such as patios and driveways. Their bright beams spread from 45 to 120 degrees. Flood lights are generally installed high up on a structure to illuminate the space below.
Along with improving security and safety, flood lights can also beautify your landscape, highlight your home’s architectural details, and define walkways.
Spotlights
A spotlight is a light that points in one direction with a narrow, concentrated beam. They are commonly used to highlight architectural details or different landscaping features, such as statues, plants, patios, or anything else you’d like to turn into a focal point.
Spotlights can achieve a variety of effects. They can be pointed upwards along a wall for uplighting, or focused on hardscape elements that you want to highlight. They can illuminate trees, brighten walkways to prevent accidents, or highlight other structures in your landscaping, such as gazebos, ponds, or water features.
One advantage of spotlights is that you can control the direction of the beam.
Motion Sensor Lighting
Motion sensor lights are great for security, but they’re also great for safety. These lights are equipped with special sensors that detect infrared waves and turn lights on automatically. As a result, they can be used to illuminate walkways and entryways to deter criminals and ensure that you and your guests make it safely to the front door.
Some motion sensor lights have timers that will keep the lights on for a certain amount of time (in some cases, 20 minutes or more). These lights only turn on after dark and are deactivated during the day to help keep your energy bills down.
Wall Pack Lighting
Just as its name suggests, wall pack lights are mounted onto the exterior of homes and buildings. Along with brightening up walkways and driveways, wall pack lights can be used to highlight objects in your yard.
While commonly used in the commercial sector, wall pack lights can also be used in residential landscape lighting when appropriate.
Bollard Lights
Bollard lights are typically used to brighten up walkways and pathways. They’re most often used to indicate the start or end of a path or walkway.
One advantage of bollards is that they can shine in every direction or they can be focused to help indicate direction. In addition, they are brighter than conventional path lights, which helps make walkways and paths safer and can add a dynamic and dramatic lighting effect.
Pathway Lights
If bollards are too big and too bright, pathways lights are another option for illuminating walkways. You can find solar-powered pathway lights just about everywhere these days, but their in-ground counterparts are brighter and more versatile, and they provide a much more consistent and dependable solution than solar lights.
Along with walkways and paths, pathway lights can also highlight plants or other garden features.
These outdoor lighting fixtures can be used to improve your property’s curb appeal and allow you to enjoy your outdoor space after dark. Landscape lighting is one of the best ways to dramatically increase the impact of your landscape, while providing added safety and security around your home.
