Your well-planned landscape design can bask in the glory of the sun all day, but it can drown in darkness once the sun has set. Installing outdoor lights will illuminate the exterior of your property at night and showcase the stunning features you have. You can display different elements like statues, trees, and fountains at night through landscape lighting techniques like highlighting, silhouette lighting, moonlighting, and accent lighting. Besides beautifying your property at night, outdoor lighting also increases safety on your property. Keep reading to learn more about these outdoor lighting techniques and how you can apply them to your landscape.
1. Highlighting
Outdoor lighting is a great way to showcase your landscape features even at night. One lighting technique that does that is highlighting. It involves placing a lighting fixture at the base of a landscape feature, like trees, statues, fountains, and your favorite plants. You can tweak the effect a little more by adjusting the angle and adding more lights to illuminate the feature better.
You can also use different colors with this technique to evoke different moods. Green lights will highlight the vibrant foliage of your trees and shrubs, while some red and orange hues can produce a dramatic fiery effect to create a sense of warmth in your outdoor living space.
2. Silhouette Lighting
Silhouette lighting is an outdoor lighting technique that involves installing lights behind an outdoor feature to show off its intricate details. Placing a spotlight at the back of a detailed outdoor feature creates a silhouette that highlights its refined edges. This outdoor lighting technique works best for:
- Topiaries
- Detailed statues
- Small trees with lush foliage
- Freshly trimmed evergreen shrubs
You can hide the light fixture to achieve a more natural look. Using warm lights can also mimic the effect of sunset, creating a more appealing and inviting ambiance on your property.
3. Moonlighting
Moonlighting is a popular lighting technique. This type of lighting is designed to mimic a natural moonlit night. For moonlighting, lights are placed at the tops of trees or buildings and are faced downward, to the lights can wash down on the objects you want to illuminate from above. In addition to beauty, this type of lighting can also increase the safety of your property since it can illuminate large areas of your property.
4. Accent Lighting
Essentially, accent lighting is a technique that draws attention to any outdoor feature or area. A narrow beam spotlight or a floodlight can be installed at the top or bottom of the feature you want to illuminate and then can be hidden to create a more visually appealing look. Hiding the lighting fixture also prevents your guests from getting glare in their eyes since they won’t be looking directly at the light source.
Accent lighting can involve up-lighting or down-lighting, or both to create a more exciting play of shadows on your feature. Up-lighting means installing an upward-facing light fixture at the bottom of the accent, while down-lighting means placing the light source at the top of an object or area facing downwards.
LED lights are the best choice for outdoor lighting since they are brighter and use less energy than typical incandescent lights.
Brighten up your property by giving us a call and scheduling our outdoor lighting service!
Your landscape design, and the rest of your property, deserve to be showcased at night. Our outdoor landscape lighting service will brighten up your property after the sun has set. We provide this service to property owners in Palmetto, Parrish, Bradenton, FL and throughout the surrounding communities. Call us today at 941-748-4613 to get an estimate on our outdoor lighting service.
