Types of Landscape Lighting
Landscape lighting is a great way to add both beauty and safety to your home’s outdoor spaces. It uses fixtures like spotlights, floodlights and well lights to highlight features of your yard at night.
For example, upward-facing step lights illuminate walkways and help prevent falls from stairs, while a handful of downward-pointing well lights highlight the dramatic architecture of a tall tree.
Pathway and Walkway Lights
Pathway and walkway lights (also called bollard lights) are a popular landscape lighting option. They’re often installed along paths, walkways and driveways to make it safer for you and your guests to move around your property at night. These lights can be freestanding or built into structures like walls, posts and steps. They can also come in a wide range of styles, from modern post lights to traditional rustic pathway lights.
Another great option for pathway lighting is uplighting. This technique involves placing landscape lights below ground level to shine up on a structure or tree, creating drama and silhouettes that aren’t possible with other types of landscape lighting. It’s best used in combination with spotlights, but can stand on its own for a very strong effect.
Spotlights are another versatile landscaping lighting type that can be used for a variety of purposes. They have a narrower light beam than floodlights, meaning they’re better suited to illuminate smaller areas of your yard or specific landscape features. They can be used to highlight trees, water fountains and other features of your yard by using different lighting techniques like moonlighting, silhouetting and grazing.
Step lighting is an important part of any landscape lighting design, as it helps to safely guide family members and guests up or down stairs after dark. It’s particularly helpful for stairways leading to decks, entrances and other areas of your home where climbing is a regular activity.
Postmount Lights
Typically placed on the top of 18- to 24-inch posts, these fixtures reflect light down into planting beds. They can also be used to mark steps or highlight a structure in your yard.
They come in a variety of styles, from classic lanterns to glowing orbs, making them a popular option. The downside of this type is that they can create glare if not properly positioned or the bulbs are too bright.
These are a great way to showcase a tree, a statue, or any other tall structure on your property. Using uplighting, you can highlight the shapes and shadows that make a feature stand out at night. The goal is to draw attention away from the light source itself.
Flood lights and spotlights share many characteristics, but they differ in the width of their light beam. Floodlights cast a wide light coverage, perfect for illuminating driveways or patios from above, while spotlights emit a narrower beam of light, ideal for accenting landscape elements.
Step lights are installed on stairs or walls to provide safe illumination in outdoor areas. A great option for spaces that see a lot of foot traffic, these lights are more durable than traditional path or walkway lighting. They can hold up to weather, humidity, and temperature change better than their counterparts. However, they can still be damaged if the bulb isn’t rated for outdoors or the fixture itself isn’t made to withstand heavy use.
Built-In Lights
There are many different styles of built-in lights that can be added to the landscape. These are often more decorative than other types of landscape lighting, but they can add a great deal to the appearance of a yard or garden. They can also be used to highlight specific features of your yard. With
Step lighting is a common type of landscape lighting that can be used to help improve safety at night, particularly for elderly or disabled residents. This can be installed on steps to the front door, backyard, or even a deck.
Flood lights are another essential landscape lighting technique that can be used to illuminate large areas of a home or entertainment area. These can be used to "wash" walls and fences with light, and they are great for highlighting architecture or other details.
Spotlights are similar to flood lights in that they provide a focused beam of light, but they can be more easily aimed and are generally better for illuminating a single or a group of elements. These can be used to illuminate a tree, a statue, or a particular landscape feature for dramatic effect.
Water feature lighting is a way to show off fountains, ponds, and other water elements in a garden. This can be achieved with submersible fixtures placed directly in the water, or by using spotlights to illuminate a fountain or pond from the surrounding landscape. If you're looking to create a romantic atmosphere in your garden, add safety to your basketball or tennis court, or illuminate your patio for memorable evenings with friends and family, trust Miami Landscape Lighting to make it happen.
Spotlights
As the name suggests, these lights are designed to highlight features in your landscape. They’re ideal for illuminating areas that are hard to reach with other types of landscape lighting or where you want to call attention to a particular area. Unlike floodlights that shed light over an entire area, spotlights have narrower beams so you can focus the light on one specific feature or object.
A popular choice for illuminating walkways, these fixtures are the most common type of landscape lighting. They can be spread out along a pathway to create a soft glow or used to outline driveways, ponds, or garden trails. These are also a great way to add safety and security at night, as they help guide people through your property and prevent trips or falls.
Accent lighting is a great way to draw attention to the most distinctive aspects of your property, such as an old twisting oak or unique garden statue. It’s also a great way to add drama and intrigue to your outdoor spaces, drawing the eye with interesting contrasts of shadow and light.
Adding step lighting is a simple, inexpensive way to keep your home safe for aging adults and guests at night. This landscape lighting technique highlights stairways, deck stairs, and other steps to provide illumination that’s easy for people to see.
Water Feature Lighting
Water features can add drama to your property after dark. Lighting them can highlight their beauty and create a focal point that attracts guests to your home’s outdoor spaces.
There are many options for illuminating your water feature, including fountain lights that are designed to be submerged in the water and underwater light fixtures that shine up to the surface to accentuate the water and its movement. Lighting your water feature can also help protect it from damage by reducing the risk of people falling into or tripping over a pond, waterfall, or stream.
Path lights are great for highlighting walkways and other walking areas on your property after dark, making it safer to navigate your landscape at night. These types of lights can be simple or more ornate depending on your tastes and how you want to use them in your landscape.
Accent lighting is all about highlighting specific elements of your landscape such as a unique garden statue or tree, an old twisting oak, or a high water wall. These kinds of lights can be bright enough to illuminate large areas, or they can be used to highlight small areas and accent the detail in your landscape. These types of lights can be flood, spotlight, or well lights. All of these lights work best when paired with other types of landscape lighting to bring the desired effect.
Perimeter Lighting
For those who have a hardscape feature in their landscape such as a wall, stairway or patio, built-in lights are an excellent option. These fixtures install into or on top of the hardscape to wash and graze it with light. They’re often used in conjunction with other types of lighting, such as pathway, up lighting and water feature lights.
Perimeter lighting can be a safety necessity at night to deter unwanted animals in areas around your home or property. Using powerful flood-style lighting, these fixtures can illuminate the outskirts of your yard to keep predators out and your family safe.
Step lighting is a great way to help guests and neighbors safely navigate steps on your property at night. These lights are commonly installed at the bottom of a staircase or along deck stairs to add visibility and prevent injuries.
Spotlights are a type of lighting that’s specifically designed to highlight a specific object or area. This is a great way to create drama, make your landscape stand out at night or emphasize an architectural element in your home’s exterior.
When creating your outdoor lighting design, it’s important to choose a combination of fixtures that best suit your needs and desires.
Landscape lighting is a great way to add both beauty and safety to your home’s outdoor spaces. It uses fixtures like spotlights, floodlights and well lights to highlight features of your yard at night. For example, upward-facing step lights illuminate walkways and help prevent falls from stairs, while a handful of downward-pointing well lights highlight…