Garden Decors

Landscape lighting is a subject rich in false ideas and mistakes that are all too easy to make yet quite simple to avoid. So let’s examine some of the more common myths and pitfalls out there.

As you might have guessed, there are more than a few landscape professionals who would prefer that folk continue to believe that installing garden lighting is a specialist job. This however is simply not true. Anyone can create fantastic landscape lighting if they follow a few straightforward principles. The single best piece of advice for getting a “designer” look in the garden (or indeed anywhere) is to plagiarize like mad. The world is awash with gardening programs and magazines and of course gardens – see what appeals to you and just steal the ideas you like most.

The second great myth/mistake that lots of people fall for is the idea that a garden should be lit up like Times Square at night. Please, don’t do this. Landscape lighting is all about subtlety and mood, suggestions and hints. The aim is to enhance natural features, exaggerating some and playing down others to create the impression that there are two quite distinct gardens – a daytime one and a night time one – not just the daytime one with the lights full on.

The follow on to the belief that bright is best is that you can also never have too much. Well actually you can. What makes outdoor lighting different from its indoors cousin is that darkness very much provides the backdrop to the whole effect. Over light it and the effect is wrecked.

It’s the contrast and the fact that you can’t actually see those areas that aren’t illuminated that provides much of the visual appeal. It permits you to design a different look at night by making some parts of the garden disappear and by emphasizing others.

The belief that solar lighting is “free” is as remarkably common as it is remarkably wrong. Apart from the initial purchase, solar lights operate by recharging batteries which have a finite number of recharge cycles before they won’t work any more.

It’s remarkably common to find supposedly “knowledgeable” folk who criticize LED outdoor lighting for their alleged lack of power. It’s certainly true that LED lights used to be up to little more than decorative effects, but not any more. Modern LED outdoor lighting easily matches traditional low voltage garden lighting and comes with a host of other benefits. Very low energy consumption, no heat, variety of formats and colors, and high durability being among them.

In conclusion:

you don’t need to pay an expensive professional; brightness is not as it happens important; nor is quantity; solar lighting is not equivalent to free lighting; LED garden lighting is the future.

If you found this article interesting then you’ll want to follow these links to discover more about LED outdoor lights, and low voltage garden lighting.