7 Tips To Light Up Your Gardens

Landscaping brings beauty, colour, and contrast into your yard. Don’t let those aesthetics disappear when the sun goes down. Outdoor lighting for your garden can serve more than purpose and allow you to add depth and colour to your landscaping at night too. Before we share our 7 tips for lighting your garden, we want to remember to be kind to neighbours and not have light shining into yards or windows around us, nor do we want to blind our guests. Also, we want to minimize light pollution and so less is more when it comes to lighting up your garden.

Plan your garden lighting with some flexibility. Many of our favourite garden plants only bloom for a short time. Gardens are moved and plants get divided or removed. Make sure that you will be able to rearrange, shift, or move your lighting altogether within the garden. Being able to highlight different plants throughout the season may be something you want to build into the plan.

When planning your garden lighting, why not let it pull double duty and spill light onto a pathway for safety or a nearby staircase? Instead of using path lighting, place low lights in the garden and let those lights spill out of the garden and illuminate the path. This creates subtle lighting that has a mind for safety. Be aware that casting a shadow on stairs is a safety hazard.

The point of garden lighting is to highlight the plants, rocks and other features and hide where the light is originating from. Get creative on how you hide the fixtures within your garden and choose fixtures that will blend in at night. Consider using a number of smaller lights rather than a single large bulb. The overlapping pools of light that will be created are more subtle and will create depth at night.

Naked branches and open structures are attractive, but they don’t light up well at night. Instead, choose to highlight more solid features in your garden – the leafy foliage, the full blooms, the rocks that cast interesting shadows. The light will reflect better and highlight the feature, not point out its lack of substance.

The temptation to use a single bulb to light up the entire garden is strong because it seems easier. And it might be, but a single bulb will create a two-dimensional portrait look at night. Instead of or in addition to the large bulb, consider well placed accent lights to highlight interesting shapes and features. Rocks cast interesting shadows at night. By allowing shadows to creep through the landscape, a three dimensional effect is created.

What’s behind the garden? Do you have a wall or other feature that will reflect light? Take advantage of that by lighting up the wall and reflecting light over a large space. Are there any two-toned plants that last all season? These plants offer contrast and add to the three dimensional effect you’re looking for. Hostas come to mind, but there are a variety of options available.

As we said above, a little light goes a long way. Make use of shields on your lights so that light is pointed down or focused in one area. Low lighting is very effective and most gardens won’t require a bright fixture to highlight its features at night. Solar powered LED lights are great because you don’t want anything really bright in the garden.

We’d love to help you create a stunning outdoor lighting display for your home or business. Contact our lighting experts to learn more about our lighting services or view our gallery of one-of-a-kind designs.