Well-designed lighting is one of several ways that we can connect the home to the landscape, extending the indoors into the outdoors, and highlighting special plants and features that present themselves in dramatic new ways when lit at night.
You may have special requirements like a skating rink or swimming pool or other need to light up a large area, but for most of us the key considerations in the residential landscape will be safety and aesthetics.
You and your guests need to be able to make their way safely to your door and move about the landscape. Try this: take a walk in the evening and return to your house with a critical eye – as if you were arriving at your address for the very first time. How does it feel? Many homes have the ubiquitous ‘coach light’ on the garage or flanking the front door.
These have become the standard offering by builders and big box stores, but consider the history: they were originally intended as headlights for coaches. So if you feel like you’re walking into oncoming traffic when you approach your own coach-lit front door, you’ll see just how un-welcoming the glare might seem to a guest.
Down-lighting the entry to the garage and the front door from the roof overhangs is a much softer and effective way light the area, and wiring and lighting in the eaves of the house can usually be done quite easily by an electrician without much fuss. Path lighting to the entrance should also be down-lit, so that you’re never looking at the bulb; the light illuminating the way rather than blinding you.
Having the house number easily visible at night is kind to your visitors and may be important if an emergency vehicle or taxi needs to call.
Deciduous trees in the landscape can be up-lit to show off their beautiful form and bark. Paper birch and river birch are fabulous, but many trees and shrubs, including serviceberry, pagoda dogwood and striped maple also have great form and bark worth highlighting, and the big grasses are especially wonderful year ‘round when lit this way. For up-lighting, choose a good quality fixture that has an extended hood to hide the lamp until you’re almost on top of it. Special features like a statue, totem pole, or other strong shape in relief are best lit from two points. This is called ‘modeling’ and it brings out the sculptural qualities of the feature in dramatic fashion.
Lighting the patio can be done effectively by down-lighting the surrounding garden area, bringing a soft glow to the sitting space, and connecting it to the garden. A task light at the barbeque area can be shut off when the job is done, and candles are the perfect al fresco dining table lights. That coach lamp by the back door just has to go.
Twelve volt lighting is available in a very wide range of styles and finishes, and is easily done by the home-owner. The wiring is connected to the fixtures by waterproof silicone-filled Marr-type connectors. This low-voltage lighting is very safe and easy on power consumption, and the wiring can be simply buried in the mulch or grass, just below the surface. A transformer converts household voltage to 12 volts, and good ones are designed to be outdoors and in use year-round. Timers are available in the transformer to switch the lighting on and off. This is not a good system if you have a 200 foot driveway that you want to light end-to-end. The low voltage drops off over a long run, just as the water pressure at the business end of a 500-foot hose is much less than at the tap. Choose top quality fixtures and transformer, and this system will last for decades.
It’s handy to have 110 volt household power out in the garden with at least one outlet there. The outlet can be a plug-in for electric garden tools, a pump or underwater lights for a water feature or another transformer for 12 volt lighting. This is also the most effective way to light the length of that 200-foot driveway. This needs to be done properly by a qualified electrician. Don’t fool around with extension cords or running unprotected wire at shallow depths; it’s just plain dangerous.
LED (Light-Emitting Diode) lamps are available for many fixtures now. These use solid state technology, developed in the early 1960’s, to create photons, or units of light, directly from electrical current, unlike conventional lamps that create light from the heat of electrical resistance in a fine wire filament. LED’s are relatively expensive, but consume very little power, give off very little heat, and are extremely rugged.
Solar-powered garden lights can give off cute twinkles in the landscape, but are really not much more powerful than fireflies; not yet up to the task of lighting a pathway or highlighting a landscape feature.
Think about what needs to be lit for safety and way-finding, think about what would be dramatic and beautiful when lit at night, get good design advice, buy good quality fixtures, and enjoy your new, extended landscape. We’ll talk again soon.
Thomas Dean of Black Sheep Design in Meaford, is a graduate of the University of Guelph in Horticulture and Landscape Design. Thomas will be a regular contributor of gardening and horticulture articles for The Meaford Independent.
