Landscape Lighting

Why We Love Landscape Lighting

Landscape lights allow you to continue to enjoy the beauty of your yard even when it's dark out. And it can even make your landscape more dramatic, with well-placed outdoor spotlights and washes casting intriguing shadows and highlighting the best plants, water features with underwater lights and other aspects. While focusing attention on your landscape's most important details, landscape lighting also helps people to safely traverse across it with path lighting and deck lighting guiding the way.

Where Outdoor Landscape Lighting Works Best

Most outdoor landscape lighting is unobtrusive, designed to discretely illuminate and keep the landscape at the center of attention. As such, landscape lighting fixtures are best hidden within bushes or rock formations and properly oriented to highlight the leaves in a tall tree or wash up a textural wall. Arrange glare-free downlights -- specifically path lighting or deck lighting -- at regular intervals to ensure safe travel along pathways and up and down stairs. Backyard ponds benefit from underwater lights, while in-ground well lights provide an elegant, warm glow. Lastly, use bollard lights in place of pathway lighting anywhere you need extra illumination for safety or direction. With the right selection of fixtures, you'll have no dressing up your landscape to the nines.

Landscape Lighting Ideas for Every Style

Whether your backyard is traditionally styled or boasting with ultra-modern outdoor furniture pieces, you are sure to find an assortment of landscape fixtures that will fit your aesthetic. Hinkley Lighting offers a complete assortment of every kind of fixture you need to decorate your landscape in style. From bollards to recessed wall lights and all of the necessary hardware, Hinkley offers the ideal contemporary solution to landscape lighting. Traditional landscapes find a congruent style in the fixtures from Kichler and Troy Lighting. And if you love the benefits of energy efficiency in your space, look to the selection of fixtures from BEGA. LED landscape lighting is a great way to be eco-friendly and cost effective with your outdoor lighting design.

PRO TIP: The Benefits of LED Landscape Lighting

In addition to the cost savings you'll notice, the use of LED landscape fixtures require very little maintenance on your part. LEDs are rated to last for a very long time, meaning you won't have to change out your landscape lights every summer. Plus, many LED fixtures offer a higher brightness output, which is ideal for outdoor applications.

How to Choose the Best Landscape Light Fixtures

There are several considerations that go into selecting the right kind of landscape lighting for your front yard, back yard or commercial property. Use these quick tips to help you get it right.

• Types of Landscape Lighting

  Depending on your application, you'll have a few different options of landscape lights to use including bollards, path lights, in-ground lights, spotlights (great for bushes and shrubbery) and floodlights. Decide where you will plan to use landscape fixtures and the type of light you expect them to provide - uplighting, silhouetting, grazing lighting, wall washing, etc.

• Get the Voltage Right

  Landscape lights are also available in different voltages - 12 volt and 120 volt. You'll need to determine the application of your landscape lighting and make sure you have the right voltage you need. Be mindful of other fixtures in the space too.

• Complement Your Outdoor Color Palette

  Landscape fixtures are offered in a variety of colors and finishes, which allow them to blend into your yard and color choices. Metallic finishes (aluminum, brushed nickel, chrome, titanium) are always popular, while understated white and black finishes offer a minimalist appearance.

• UL Listing Is Critical

  Be sure to check the UL rating of the fixtures you are interested in. While all of the landscape lights in this assortment are save to use outdoors, some are available as damp-rated (they are safe to be exposed to water occasionally) and others are wet-rated (they can be exposed to any amount of water without harm).

• Dark-Sky Compliance

  Lastly, if you live in an area that promotes dark-sky compliance in outdoor lighting, be sure to select fixtures that are specifically rated as dark-sky compliant. These designs are meant to minimize the amount of glow emitted by shielding glare and light trespass.

Other Considerations

Any outdoor lighting scheme isn't complete without more decorative lighting -- wall, ceiling, portable and post-mounted fixtures add to the functionality of landscape lighting, as well as to a home's exterior decor. And enjoy grilling on the barbecue with the proper amount of light with a BBQ light from Focus Industries. The line of grill lights from Focus complement outdoor and landscape lighting, while also serving a much needed purpose. Finally, enjoy your landscape lighting into the evening hours with comfortable and stylish outdoor furniture including sofas, lounge chairs and hammocks.