Landscape lighting is one of the most underused and overlooked aspects of a modern garden. Gone are the days of incandescent bulbs, poorly designed components and minimal choices regarding styles of lamps. From uplighting a prominent tree to path lighting that guides the way at night, landscape lighting has the capacity to completely change how you see your home, business or landscape.
Landscape lighting is multifaceted in its ability to enhance, protect, guide and illuminate. Large trees or architectural features on a structure are brought to life at night with expertly placed lighting. When properly aimed, light can enhance features, nooks and crannies and angles that are not noticed during daylight hours. Lighting at night adds a layer of security to any residence or building by illuminating dark corners and providing a glow of light that may be unwelcoming to intruders. Paths are illuminated, steps and bumps are noticed and sharp curves or parking areas are softly highlighted, protecting nighttime walk paths.
In the early years of landscape lighting, fixtures were unreliable, suffered voltage drop (the last light on the daisy chain was dim compared to the first) and options were limited for fixtures. Today’s modern, LED light “engines” combined with a beautiful array of fixture options and controller opportunities allows anyone to enjoy their landscape without having to deal with bulb burnouts or dim lights. Brass, copper and powder coated aluminum are standards for hardware. Different intensities of light are available (generally 2700 or 3000 kelvin), as are many different wattages of long lived LED bulbs, widths of light spread and placement options. Moonscaping, uplighting, path lighting , garden art highlighting, and deck rail lights are just a few of the options designers and landscape professionals have when developing a system.
If you are considering landscape lighting for your property, keep the following items in mind when choosing a contractor:
- How many jobs have they completed and are they willing to show you examples of some.
- What kind of warranty do they offer (hint: you should, at a minimum, receive at least a 2 year guarantee)
- What brand of lighting do they offer and why,
- What kind of training have they undergone and finally
- What kind of insurance do they have? Asking these questions will help you weed out contractors who just “add on” landscape lighting services from those who take the job seriously and offer outstanding creativity.
Call Browder-Hite at 757-442-5296 to discuss the possibilities landscape lighting can offer you, today!