Guides on Planning an Outdoor Lighting Layout

Outdoor lighting projects such as garden lighting, park, landscape lighting need a serious planing. A successful outdoor lighting plan requires selecting the right fixtures, then placing and wiring them correctly. The first thing before planing an outdoor lighting is Selecting the right design and components, Walk into any home center or garden center this spring and you’re guaranteed to run into a towering display of low-voltage lighting. You’ll find $69 prepackaged sets and $100 individual lights; plastic fixtures and metal ones; lights you can shine down from trees and up from ponds.

Use waterproof pond lights for illuminating pools, fountains and other water features; offset path lights for lighting walkways; cone lights for highlighting both walkways and the surrounding plants; tree-mounted spotlights for simulating moonlight; and flood lights for illuminating trees, buildings and other large elements.

Consider that a Special lights need special effects too, A MOON LIGHT should be installed 15 to 30 ft. high and have one or more branches between it and the ground to simulate moon shadows. Provide at least 24 in. between the light and branches to prevent “hot spots.”

Here are another tips on designing an outdoor lighting plan:

• If your lights come with press-on fittings—the type that bite through the insulation and into the wire to make their connection—cut them off and use the wire connectors shown in Photo 4. 
• The farther a light is from the transformer (and the more lights installed between it and the transformer), the less light it will put out.  
• Always leave a little extra wire as you hook up the lights. This will give you the freedom to move a light after you’ve hooked it up for testing or after you’ve installed it.
• Burying the wires should be your last step. Lay everything out, hook up your lights, test your voltage, and look at your results at night before burying the lines.
• Purchase a transformer with a built-in photocell and timer. Orient the photocell with some western (sunset) orientation so it doesn’t turn lights on too early.

more information: rd.com

Outdoor Lights for Garden and Landscape

Outdoor Lights for Garden and Landscape

Outdoor lighting become important since it used not only for making-over the garden and landscape, here are several beautiful outdoor lights system that installed on garden or landscape. There's much more to lighting than meets the eye, and considering how to light your garden can drastically change the look, feel, and ambiance of any outdoor lights system.

Outdoor lighting has some general, obvious uses: it helps you do things easily, makes you feel safe, and makes your home comfortable. But it can do much more when used to its full potential.

Outdoor Lighting Basics for Designing Garden and Landscape

Several garden and landscape designer forgot to designing the outdoor lights elements, Outdoor lighting is an often over looked, but crucial element to creating great outdoor spaces. Outdoor lighting extends the function of outdoor spaces into the evening, and helps define a warm and inviting living space. A variety of lighting effects are possible through proper use of outdoor lighting.

Uplighting: Uplighting can be used to highlight a vertical object in your outdoor space such as a specimen tree, an interesting façade, or landscape structure such as trellises and arbors. In order to prevent glare, fixtures should be aimed away from viewer. For objects viewed multiple sides, well lights with louvers should be used, and located as close to the base of the object as possible.

Spotlighting: Special landscape features such as sculptures, specimen shrubs or benches can be lighted from above utilizing shielded spot lamps. Lights should be concealed in adjacent trees or structures, and should be used judiciously in the landscape.

Path Lighting: Patch Lighting is accomplished by utilizing low mounted spread lights along one edge of a path. Path lighting is available in an endless array of styles, and often becomes a feature of your outdoor space.

Moonlighting: By strategically locating small ‘up and down’ fixtures inside of large trees, it is possible to replicate the effect of moonlight filtering through the branches. It is crucial the fixtures are specially designed for this purpose.

The key to all these affects is to not over due it. Nothing is more tacky than washing your property with gigantic flood lights. Remember, part of what makes a beautiful outdoor space at night, is the fact that it’s dark out!