Why Landscape Lighting?

Why Landscape Lighting?

By Mike Gambino

This is the first question that should be considered when planning landscape lighting for your property. What is the purpose, the end result that is to be achieved in order to determine the proper effect which is desired.

There are four basic purposes for landscape lighting

1- The desire to illuminate some particular area of the garden so that it may be used as an outdoor living space, where entertaining may take place, meals served, conversation started etc.

2- The wish to illuminate lawns or recreation areas of the grounds so that sporting activities may take place like croquet, ping-pong, badminton or whatever.

3-Illumination of garden features such as interesting trees, shrubs, flower gardens, fountains, statues, ponds and water features so that their beauty may be enjoyed at night as well as by day.

4-To provide a soft level of illumination or ambiance around the entire property to accomplish a feeling of safety, security, beauty and utility of the property after dark.

After these determinations have been made, to provide the lighting effect becomes a matter of determining the proper locations for light sources and designing the installation in order to get wiring to those light sources as inconspicuously as possible. This task is different on every property which makes it obvious that these must be dealt with separately in each individual installation. Because the physical characteristics of each garden are so different, no two projects are ever the same. The simple bringing of lights to the desired locations does not constitute Garden illumination. To achieve a truly beautiful and satisfactory installation, it is necessary to hire someone who has made a special study of this type of lighting.

The finest landscape lighting installations are those in which we are no more conscious of the light sources then we are of the source during the day. To achieve this subtlety it is necessary to use many well placed low wattage, low voltage light sources as our desire is not to blanket light over a large area but confine it only to the subject or object to be illuminated rather than spoiling the effect by lighting a large surrounding area.

If what is desired is illumination for play or sporting events then it is important to have an even, uniform spread of light all over the entire area where the events will occur.

Beautiful flower beds that are a great source of pleasure during the day can also be lighted so they can be fully enjoyed either from the garden or from when viewed from inside through windows or glass doors.

This website contains hundreds of photos of my projects taken by me over the past twenty years or so of my installing lights in nighttime gardens. Effects which may be reproduced in your own garden.

This landscape lighting blog is published by Mike Gambino of Gambino landscape lighting inc. all rights reserved. Mike is a professional landscape lighting system designer/ builder and has been designing, installing and maintaining landscape lighting systems for more than 20 years. Mike resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife and 2 sons. To visit his website go to www.gambinolighting.com . To inquire about hiring Mike please click here .

Blog articles may be published with permission on other websites without editing or removing links.

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