Your home’s exterior should be a place that showcases your personal style and makes you proud to show it off. Landscape Lighting Harrisburg PA is a great way to do this.
It offers safety, security and beauty for your yard or outdoor spaces. It fosters the spatial experience and enhances visual appeal after dark.
Uplighting is a great way to showcase a garden, tree or other feature in your landscape after dark. It’s done by placing a light fixture low to the ground or at a shrub or plant, and shining it upwards. This creates a dramatic effect, with a mix of bright light and dark shadows.
It’s also a beautiful way to highlight a statue, fountain or other hardscape feature. It can also be used to add drama to a large wall or fence, and can even showcase a water feature in a whole new way. The key is to choose the right fixtures and location for uplighting, so you get a balance of function and aesthetics.
For example, a small uplight can draw attention to a unique shape in a rock garden or a plant with interesting bark or color, while a large uplight can highlight a tall tree or other element. Another important consideration is the amount of light a particular uplight produces, which is called lumens. The best landscape lights come with adjustable lumen output, so you can set the brightness to your desired level.
Other landscape lighting techniques include silhouetting, which highlights an object by aiming the light behind it, and cross-lighting, which draws attention to both sides of a feature. Then there’s the “moonlighting” effect, which can be achieved by highlighting leaves and branches with light that reflects off the water or ground.
While uplighting and other techniques are great ways to illuminate your landscape for both function and beauty, don’t forget about safety. Keeping walkways and stairs well-lit ensures that family members and guests can navigate your property after dark safely. It also helps deter potential vandalism and burglary, as it makes your home less of a target.
Landscape lighting is powered by a transformer, which reduces your home’s 120-volt electrical system to safe 12 volts for all the light fixtures in your yard. This eliminates the need for risky wires and allows you to enjoy your yard at night without worrying about safety or security issues. Each light fixture then connects to the transformer with a length of wire, and is attached to the ground with stakes or mounted using a bracket.
Downlighting
The opposite of uplighting, downlighting is the installation of lights high in your landscape to illuminate areas and objects below. This is most often done to light a driveway, patio, or lawn area for safety and visibility. This technique also mimics moonlight in a more controlled way by shining light through branches and leaves to create a dappled effect on the ground.
Downlighting is a great alternative to floodlights which tend to overpower and overwhelm landscape elements with their brightness. It can be used in conjunction with uplighting to add depth, ambiance, and functionality to your landscape after dark.
Whether you’re interested in creating an inviting feel, highlighting architectural features, or bringing safety to your home and garden, Landscape Lighting is a great investment. It will enhance your property and make it more attractive and functional to live in, entertain guests, and enjoy the outdoors all year round.
When done correctly, Landscape Lighting can highlight your home’s best features without overpowering it. In fact, it will actually bring more value to your home and be a selling point should you ever decide to move.
While it may sound complicated, landscape lighting is actually fairly simple once you have the basics down. It starts with a transformer, which plugs into an outlet. From there, a super long wire feeds to the different spots in your landscape, where you can cut the wire and splice it into a fixture’s wires, mount them, and hide the connections with mulch or rock.
We use fixtures made by VOLT(r), which are of the highest quality and will last for years with no issues. They are made of solid brass and copper so they’ll never rust and have a timeless look that will complement your landscaping.
The beauty of this type of lighting is that it brings a whole new level of detail to your landscape at night, especially with the play of light and shadow on walls and structures. It can really show off the texture and details of your stucco, brick, or stone work that might not be visible during the day, and even highlight the silhouettes of trees and other architectural features. This is one of our favorite ways to highlight the unique beauty of a property and set it apart from other homes in the neighborhood.
Cross-Lighting
Incorporating cross lighting into your landscape design adds depth, intrigue and detail. Whether it’s illuminating the intricate details of a garden statue or highlighting architectural features on your home, this technique can make any feature shine. When used in combination with other lighting techniques, it creates a magnificent nighttime atmosphere and highlights your landscape’s most stunning features.
There are a number of different types of landscape lighting to choose from, including uplighting, downlighting, cross lighting and silhouette lighting. Uplighting involves placing lights at ground level and pointing them upward, creating dramatic shadows and enhancing the texture of your landscape. Downlighting is the opposite, illuminating an area from below to create a soft glow over walkways and gardens. Cross lighting uses two or more lights aimed at an object from oblique angles to illuminate it from multiple sides. This technique minimizes shadowing and emphasizes texture, making it ideal for statues or large trees. Silhouetting involves placing a light behind an object to create a striking silhouette effect, ideal for flagpoles or garden art.
Path lighting is the functional element of your landscape, illuminating pathways and areas where visibility may be a concern for safety at night. This type of lighting is typically positioned low to avoid glare and to highlight the details of your pathway’s surface. It’s also a great way to showcase stepping stones, retaining walls and other elements in your landscape. When choosing path lights, opt for those with a warm color temperature to create an inviting ambiance.
A well-designed landscape lighting scheme is a must for anyone looking to maximize their property’s potential after dark. A professional lighting company will use a variety of techniques to highlight your landscape’s most beautiful features and create a mood that is both inviting and practical. The best landscape lighting options combine uplighting and downlighting with cross lighting to create a layered lighting effect that is both functional and beautiful. Energy efficiency and durability are also important when selecting landscape lights, so look for LEDs or solar-powered options to ensure longevity and minimize your carbon footprint.
Inground Lights
Often used in place of path lighting or lights on a deck, inground landscape lighting is installed underneath the ground. Because they are flush with the ground, these lights are tougher to trip over or damage compared to above-ground light fixtures. They can also be recessed into concrete, pavers and other hard surfaces.
These landscape fixtures create a stunning effect in your yard or garden at night, especially when combined with up lighting. They can highlight a particular tree or shrub, or can be installed around a pool to illuminate the water and the surrounding area.
In ground lighting is particularly popular with commercial accounts because it creates a very clean look for outdoor areas that have a lot of foot traffic or vehicles. Because the fixture is buried in the ground, it is less likely to be damaged by lawn care equipment or cars passing through.
Depending on the purpose of the lighting, different in grade luminaires are recommended in terms of size, wattage and color temperature. For instance, small in ground fixtures are perfect for accenting a single plant, while larger features such as large trees, gated entryways and other tall structures require more powerful and higher wattage luminaires to stand out effectively.
Another factor to consider when choosing an in ground luminaire is whether you want a dimmable or non-dimmable fixture. Many LED smart landscape lights now come with tunable white and RGB capabilities, so you can change the color of your lighting to match the season or for special events. This is a great way to add a splash of color and make your landscape lighting truly unique. Aside from that, dimmable LED well lights can help reduce glare in your outdoor space, making them much more comfortable to use than their non-dimmable counterparts. If you are unsure of what type of in ground landscape lighting you need for your project, consult with your local lighting professionals to learn more about the options available.