A Guide to Selecting Spotlights for Your Landscape Lighting Installation

There are many different types of lighting – from floodlights to spotlights, path lights, and area lights. Southern Landscape Lighting Systems shares their tips on selecting spotlights for a landscape lighting installation as they play an integral role in transforming the exterior of a house and property.

Spotlights have their origins in theatre and show business and were used to light up the main actors on the stage. Today, in landscape lighting designs, they perform a similar function drawing emphasis on a landscape or architectural feature. Different from floodlights that give light to a wide area, spotlights have a much narrower focus with a beam that highlights one feature at a time.

Outdoor lighting isn’t designed to flood the exterior of your home with light. Rather, it is the interplay of light and shadow that adds depth to a garden landscape after dark. The selective application of spotlights creates visual accents on a home’s walls or sidings.

There are different ways to add spotlights to your property, such as:

Exterior Walls

The spacing and positioning of spotlights that shine on a wall is key to creating a visually appealing exterior. Where the siding or wall is plain without windows, spotlights should be positioned so that the beams overlap about halfway up the wall. 

Columns

If your home has columns, these provide an ideal architectural feature for spotlighting. With columns there is usually a white section between the columns under the eaves; this is where the beam from each column should meet the next (halfway along). Using this design, a popular choice of spotlight is a well-type flush set fixture which presents the column in its best light with the illumination starting at the bottom of the column. 

Second Story

Outdoor architectural lighting aims to reveal the shape of the most important structures on the property so they can be seen even on a dark night. This requires that the upper story of a building is also illuminated along with the lower story. This represents a challenge for the landscape lighting company during the installation process as the spotlights will need to be mounted either under the eaves or in gutters. An alternative to this is to use narrow beam spotlights that are positioned from the ground and aimed to shine at the underside of the upper eaves while avoiding shining the lights into second-story windows.

Trees

Whether during the day or at night, trees are an integral part of your property’s landscape and are impressive features in their own right. When it comes to shining a spotlight on them, you will need to consider their size and shape to determine the best way to showcase them.

Tall, Expansive Trees

Large, wide trees will need more than one spotlight. An effective strategy is to use at least two 60-degree beams to illuminate the trunk and the outer edge of the canopy. The number of fixtures you use will depend on the size of the tree and the extent to which you want it to be a focal point in the design of your landscape.

Large, Narrow Trees

These trees will usually only need a single spotlight (although two will give better coverage) positioned at the base with a beam that is wide enough to light up the tree’s canopy.

Small to Medium-Sized Trees

Young or ornamental trees will need one spotlight. A 24-degree spotlight will work well for a short, narrow tree, while a short, wise tree can benefit from two 60-degree spotlights.

Southern Landscape Lighting Systems in Marietta, GA, offers engaging landscape lighting installations for their clients. With many years of experience in the industry, they consistently offer the best quality LED lighting and excellent customer service to the clients.

The following blog post was originally published to A Guide to Selecting Spotlights for Your Landscape Lighting Installation and is courtesy of Southern Landscape Lighting Systems. See more on:} http://www.southernlls.com/

Five Simple Landscape Lighting Techniques for Your Home this Winter

With winter upon us, trees have lost their leaves, and your garden might be looking a bit bare. But, after dark, this provides the perfect opportunity to transform your property into a winter wonderland. With a professional outdoor landscape lighting installation you can add a sense of drama and beauty to your home’s exterior. 

Southern Landscape Lighting Systems shares their top five landscape lighting techniques for the winter season:

Add Contrast with Uplighting Your Garden's Landscape Design

Uplighting, rather than using floodlights, offers great contrast where up lights are placed closer to the building resulting in a bolder, more dramatic effect. Different from the typical wall-washing light from floodlights, it’s much easier to draw attention to the focal points of a landscape. This might range from architectural features of the home itself to areas of interest in the garden such as trees, fountains, structures or statues. For uplighting, spotlights and well lights are the most popular fixtures.

Create an Illuminated Backdrop with Silhouetting Landscape Lighting Effect

Silhouetting is where a fixture is placed behind the featured design and aimed against a wall to create a backlit feature. This is an excellent option for winter when trees lose their leaves, offering the opportunity to create interesting outlines using the bare trees. This technique is known for its ability to create intrigue through the interesting outlines and profiles of features that it creates. For silhouetting, spotlights and well lights work best to create the shadowed shapes that contrast with the light behind.

Choose a Softer Juxtaposition of Light and Dark with the Shadowing Lighting Technique

This technique is similar to silhouetting, where the lighting fixture is placed at the base of the fixture and aimed at an adjacent wall. But the style of the lighting is much gentler with the goal being to create a softer shadow. The technique works well all year round and is often used to highlight a tree with delicate, open foliage. It’s effective in winter where the shadows created by trees that don’t have leaves tend to be harsh and scary-looking rather than welcoming. 

Whether in winter or summer, shadowing works to create drama and depth to a home’s facade, although the overall effect is more subtle. Shadowing can be added to your garden by a landscape lighting company using a combination of floodlights, well lights, and spotlights.

Recreate the Feeling of a Moonlit Night with Moonlighting

The moonlighting technique is created by placing a downlight fixture as high up inside a tree as possible. It should have a full glare guard and be angled down. By doing this the light mimics the look of moonlight shining down through the branches. The light causes shadow patterns to appear on the ground that looks both beautiful and very natural. It is a good option in winter as the lighting is more subtle, with less glare, which is necessary when the trees are bare, and many of the vibrant features of a garden in summer are not present. Moonlighting is done with downlights and works best with trees that have open branches.

Add Light to Your Garden with Downlighting

The downlighting technique works in a similar way to moonlighting, but the effect that it creates is far brighter. To create the downlighting effect, fixtures are placed high up in features such as trees, eaves, trellises, or walls to pointed downwards, casting a pool of light over a large area. The amount of light that you want each fixture to provide can be adjusted by placing the light higher (for more illumination) or lower (to light a path or a smaller area of the yard).

Southern Landscape Lighting Systems provides outdoor lighting solutions to residents throughout Atlanta. Their friendly, professional services set them apart, ensuring that their clients have a seamless, excellent experience every time.

The following info was originally published to Five Simple Landscape Lighting Techniques for Your Home this Winter and is courtesy of Southern Landscape Lighting Systems. Find more on:} http://www.southernlls.com/