Adding a lighting feature to your lawn can help emphasize your hardscaping and landscaping, and the extra light can help prevent trips and falls at night.
There are many different outdoor lighting techniques, but here are just a few of the most popular ones.
1. Up Lighting
Lights are placed close to the base of trees or other prominent features in your yard such as statues, fountains, etc. The lights are positioned to face up to show off the shape, texture, and colors of your landscaping features at night.
2. Down Lighting
Light fixtures are attached to the eaves of a structure or up in a tree to cast a downward light onto a large area. The higher the light is placed, the larger the area that is illuminated. Down lighting is useful for areas where you will be entertaining guests at night.
3. Silhouetting
This is great for emphasizing trees or structures with interesting shapes. The light is placed behind the feature and pointed at a backdrop (usually the side of your house or along a fence) so that when it gets dark, the silhouette of the feature is visible against the white background.
4. Shadowing
This is essentially the opposite of silhouetting. The light is placed in front of the feature so that the shadow is projected onto a backdrop. The effect is usually much softer than with silhouetting, and is especially striking with objects that are more delicate and are affected by the wind.
5. Path Lighting
Small lights are placed along a pathway to create symmetrical pools of light. While this does add beauty to a yard, its main purpose is so that you can walk along your pathways at night without incident.
