Comments (11)

By greg, August 21, 2009 6:49 am

Have you ever been driving around at night and seen a home with a beautiful lit up yard?  This is landscape lighting.  Landscape lights are essentially the finishing touches to a landscape design.  Landscape lighting is an art and takes some engineering to make sure you get the desired effect when the sun goes down.

Landscape lighting is almost a status symbol.  Think about it, have you ever seen an expensive hotel without beautiful lit up landscaping at night?  For anyone that has done any landscaping it is easy to understand how much time and money is spent on making your yard and land look presentable and beautiful.  With all this time and money being spent, wouldn’t you want to be able to see the fruits of your labors at night?  We certainly hope that you do and landscape lighting will get you that desired result.

Before you go out and buy a bunch of landcape lighting fixtures, there are a few things that you need to do.  First of all you need to decide on what type of effect that you want.  For example, flood lights do not look as good on walkways, but they look excellent to show off large trees and even large plants.  Once you have decided the types of effects you want in each area of your yard you will be much more prepared to find the right kind of fixtures.

Many people are worried that landscape lighting is expensive.  This simply is not the case.  In fact many landscape lights utilize solar panels and charge during the day so that they don’t have to use any of the electricity from your home to power on at night.  The solar powered lights are definitely the most popular type of landscape light fixture as it pays for itself by how much you save on your electric bill.  Some solar power lights cannot produce certain effects.  Flood lights need a little more juice and must be plugged into electricity.  These types of lights will not hurt your wallet too bad as they run on super low voltage and hardly effect your electric bill.

We have one more tip for you before you run to the store to buy landscape lighting fixtures.  Try to buy fixtures that look like the vegetation.  You want your lights to be very discreet so you are more focused on what’s lit up than the light fixture itself.

Please refer to our other pages to learn about specific light fixture types and prices.

Comments (0)

By greg, June 29, 2009 3:32 pm

If you are thinking about adding some landscape lighting to your yard there are two main reasons you should add landscape lights.  The first reason is simple because you want to add an extension  of enjoyment for your yard to be enjoyed at night.  The second reason is something that not too many people think about, and that is the reason of security.

Its a fact that less homes are broken into that have landscape lighting.  Not only will landscape lighting deter most criminals, it also gives you some other types of securities.  Having worked in the real estate and mortgage business for years, i often heard about people that had been sued because someone slipped and fell on their property.  One common factor in many of these stories is that these accidents happened at night when they couldn’t see.  When i was growing up my parents had a long sidewalk walkway on the side of the house.  At night it was very dark and hard to see where you were going.  I was always scared to walk on that side of the house at night because as a child i was scared.  My parents did add lighting eventually and it made that side of the house beautiful.  We had rose bushes that were accentuated at night and i was no longer scared to go on that side of the house at night.  Not only can it curb children’s fears of the dark, but by adding landscape lighting it will save you alot of money as people will be much more less likely to hurt themselves if they can see where they are going.

Homes with landscape lighting look much nicer as well and can give you the security of curb appeal.  In this current recession, people want to do everything they can to improve their home’s worth as homes are deteriorating in value around the country.  Landscape lighting adds some value to your home because it accentuates the hard work you have put into your landscaping.  It also makes your home look more inviting and gives it a very warm demeanor. 

We hope that as you are deciding on landscaping fixtures that you think about these security features that come with adding landscape lighting.  While considering the security aspect, make sure you pick lights that will light up walkways, driveways, and especially steps within your yard.  We are excited for you to extend the love you have for your yard into the night hours and hope you can sleep easy knowing your property is a little more secured.