Lighting your garden...
Garden lighting is brilliant... Yes, outdoor lights can help light the way along a path or prevent guests from ending up in your pond. But the best thing about garden lighting is the way it can be used to pick out detail and create atmosphere.
We are spending much more time in UK gardens these days, so we thought we would put up a guide with a few tips on getting it right...
Garden lights are best used to pick out certain detail and, in effect, darken other areas of space (like a big compost heap in the corner!). Use lighting to draw the eye to extremities of your garden and give a sense of depth and space. Don’t try to light everything - at best it will look like an OTT Christmas effort... at worse a 24-hour garage!
The best way to get your garden lighting right is to experiment with a torch and a good friend. Get your friend to move around the garden and shine light in different directions and from different places - they will need to crawl around a little! You will soon get a feel for what is going to work well.
Up-lighting back walls, fences and furniture really draws the eye through the garden and gives a sense of space, while placing lighting behind foliage creates fantastic organic shadows. Mixing different kinds of lighting works best - don’t be tempted to do anything too symmetrical or place uniformly spaced lights around the perimeter of your garden - it tends to look a little like a car-park!
One common question is whether to go for electric or solar powered garden lighting. A few years ago, solar lighting was pretty poor, both in terms of the light given off and battery life. Things have changed a huge amount over the last few years however, and the current generation of solar lighting use modern solar cells and battery technology to make the old complaints a thing of the past.
We tend to prefer solar garden lighting for a number of reasons. First is the initial set-up. Mains-powered garden lighting must be connected to your home power supply, often requiring help from an electrician, plus you’ll often need to run lengths of cable around your garden (which can be pulled-up by kids/pets - of cut when gardening etc!). Solar lighting however, can be placed anywhere in the garden and can be moved around as required without more cable-routing work.
Solar garden lighting also gets the nod for use of renewable energy... There is something really neat about the way solar lights power-up when light is abundant and give back light when the night falls. People like to leave garden lighting turned on, as it not only looks great from outside and inside the home, but offers a bit of extra security. Running solar lighting means you can leave the lights on without worry over the electricity bill!
Electric lighting is more powerful if you are looking to light a football pitch or fire-escape, but if you want to create an atmosphere in your outdoor space, and extend the day, modern solar lighting is perfect...!
Please give us a call if you need any advice on outdoor lighting - we will do our best to help out (save for coming over with our torch...!).
Bau Outdoors