Garden design solutions: 3 ways good lighting design can enhance your garden
Many of the gardens we design now include lighting in one form or another. The world of garden lighting has developed enormously over the last few years, and we now have an excellent range of low-energy LED lighting products to choose from. We should recognise the importance of ‘dark skies’, but subtle garden lighting (ideally on a timer for efficiency) can really enhance a good garden without impacting on nature excessively.
Here are our top three tips for great garden lighting:
1. Focus on navigation
It may sound obvious, but good lighting can help us safely move around a garden when we can’t rely on natural light. Highlighting paths is key, but ensuring changes of level are visible is even more important. Even the best-designed steps can be dangerous in fading light, so installing carefully selected lighting can make a world of difference. We love to use simple downlighters to illuminate the treads of steps without causing any issues with glare, but there are several other ways to achieve similar effects.
2. Creating wonderful atmosphere
Spending time in our gardens in the evenings can be really special, but let’s also not forget about how our garden looks at night when viewed from inside our house (especially if we’ve got large windows or bi-fold doors). Good lighting can create wonderfully atmospheric effects, so let’s have some fun and create something that will make us smile. It is important to remember that we aren’t trying to replicate daylight so we don’t need to floodlight everything. Let’s concentrate instead on picking out key features or planting. For example, highlighting a favourite tree (see photo above) or focal point can be extremely effective, as can backlighting a border so that we see our plants in silhouette.
3. Delight and wonder
Many of us will remember the joy we felt as children when we gazed excitedly at brightly coloured twinkling lights at Christmas. We don’t have to use multi-coloured lights in our gardens (although some people love them and all power to them if this is their thing), but we can still try to capture some of the magic we felt when we were younger. The good news is that fairy lights don’t have to just be for the festive period! They can look wonderful in an old apple tree or hanging from an arbour or gazebo. Similarly, flexible LED strip lighting can be really effective when placed beneath a bench or inside the top of a raised bed. We can also use lighting to enhance our water features, with a variety of options available for either lighting the feature or the water itself.
Good garden lighting can make so much difference and needn’t be expensive to install or run. It is important, however, to prioritise safety, so please remember to consult a qualified electrician for any 240v connections.
Tythorne Garden Design provides professional fixed-fee garden design solutions for customers in Grantham, Stamford, Newark and surrounding areas. Let's see how we can help you to enjoy your garden more. Call us on 07900 224 239 or 01529 455 355.