When you invest a lot of time and energy into making your landscape look and feel the way you want it to, you want it to be seen. Along with illuminating all of the unique features you’ve installed, lighting is also important to ensure that you and your guests can safely navigate your property.
Not sure how to lay out your landscape lighting or think it might be too much of an undertaking? Don’t worry, you don’t have to be a landscape designing genius to learn how to lay out landscape lighting. While you might see complicated light layouts on your neighbor’s property, you don’t have to create something too intricate to make a statement and still keep your family safe at night.
Simply start by touring through your landscaping and identifying the spots where you need to place landscaping lighting using some of our handy tips below.
How to Lay Out Landscape Lighting for Optimum Effect
Here are the prime spots you should consider for maximizing your landscape lighting:
Along Walkways
After you’ve taken a few steps onto your front yard walkways, or your backyard path, it’s likely that the light from your home is no longer enough to illuminate your path. Keep in mind that all walkways should be lit, not just for safety but also for ambiance, and consider the spots where your footpath is especially dark. If there are any additional features along your path that you want to highlight, such as a water feature, think about adding lighting to those too for added effect.
Also pay careful attention to lighting for your landscaping steps and your pool, where falls are more likely to occur.
Your Entryways
Most walkways inevitably lead to doors and these should also be illuminated, for safety and for improving aesthetics. Lighting has a great way of making entranceways look larger. Be sure that you choose strong enough lights that your security camera can see at night, remember that thieves and other criminals are deterred by light.
Above Seating
Placing lighting above or around seating areas will make them usable and more functional at night. We suggest you combine two different landscape lights: a strong light above and fainter lights surrounding the seating.
In this way, you’ll have full light when guests are eating, and a softer ambiance when you’re just relaxing and socializing.
The string lights you place along the edge of your seating area can be themed to your occasion or seasonal—there are many string lights on the market, so be sure to do a few comparisons and choose the right set of lights that are in line with your style and budget.
Along the Driveway
Have you ever tried to bring something in from the car at night and had trouble seeing where you’re going? You’re more liable to trip on something in the driveway at night without proper lighting. We recommend lining each side of your driveway with lights, which will not only improve safety but also make your driveway look spectacular from the road.
Beneath Plants
When deciding where to place landscape lighting, few people think of below the plants. While there’s no real safety benefits to placing plants here unless some of your plants happen to drape more over your walkway, it generally just makes your landscape look more sophisticated and beautiful at night.
Place lights beneath the major elements of your landscaping, such as large trees, water features and stone accents. If there’s a certain colour of flower or plant you like, consider shining light on it to really make it pop. Or scatter a few lights throughout the yard to give everything an overall glow.
More Landscaping Ideas
Looking for other ways to make your landscaping more beautiful? Lane’s Landscaping Supply has all of the lighting, stone, interlocking and firepits you need. Contact us to today to discuss your landscaping supply needs.