Lighting

It is going to depend a lot on what type of garden you have but generally you want to highlight certain plants, trees or features of your garden. There are several ways to achieve this but it is a good rule of thumb to go with a large number of light fixtures, and only a small amount of light from each fixture, to maximize the effects you are after. Don't flood light your entire garden with one or two strong lights. Different situations will require different sized lamps, but 20 watts per lamp is usually a good starting point to work from.

It is important to remember that your purpose in setting up garden lighting is not to blot out the nighttime. You are not trying to blast massive amounts of light on your garden and compete with the sun. Rather you are trying to create a romantic, or other mood enhancing, way of seeing your garden in a different light. Less is more when it comes to lighting to enhance the nighttime beauty of your garden. So try not to over do it.

Downlighting is by far the most common type of outdoor night lighting out there. With downlighting, the light is pointing down toward the ground. Usually they are up above you, but not always. Well over 80 percent of all outdoor lighting is like this. Streetlights, lights over your entrance door and pretty much any light up on a wall or post is setup for downlighting. It best simulates the direction of natural sunlight and moonlight, so it gives us a familiarity and comfort that other types of lighting can't always achieve. Downlighting is almost always used in safety and security locations and situations.

If you have a place in your garden where there is a table, several chairs or where people would naturally tend to gather you would probably want to consider downlighting the area. If you go with a tall lamppost light in the area make sure it matches the style of your house and the rest of the garden. It will be a very visible part of your garden, night and day, so you want it to fit in. There is an almost endless variety of lampposts out there for all different kinds of lighting systems, so don't limit yourself to the first one you see. Some lamppost lights are spotlights and only illuminate a small area under them. Others are wide area lights and spread the light out over a wide area. Make sure you take this into consideration when you balance the lamppost lighting with other lighting in the garden.

Uplighting is an excellent way to bring out the beauty of plants and trees. A small lamp near the ground pointing up under low lying plants brings out their beauty and is a good way to light small pathways as well. But make sure you also have enough low downlight for safety along walkways. A larger lamp pointing up at a small tree can achieve spectacular results at times and uplighting against a wall or fence can also often create a very romantic glow. But make sure uplighting is not pointing into your eyes.