17 Mar Garden lighting textures
By Mike Gambino
Bringing out textures at night that may go unnoticed during the day creates interest and attention in the landscape after dark. In the photo below from this recently completed Gambino LED landscape lighting project in Beverly Hills California. It is the architectural walls with the exposed rough unfinished mortar joints (this is by design by the way) that steal the show and draws the attention and not the typical water fountain itself which appears in the foreground.
This effect was achieved by placing the brass bullet style light sources approximately 10 inches from the wall slightly pitched off their 90 degree centers towards the wall so water and debris won’t settle upon the lens and block light output over time. Three watt 60 degree LED’s were used with prismatic optic spread lenses to baffle the light and eliminate any light imperfections or artifacts from appearing on this light wall surface and take away from the interesting shadows which have formed on the brick located above each of the mortar joints.
This next featured illuminated texture is a bold south western plant called the Blue Agave or Century plant. It is a plant that is native to Mexico so it will only be found there and in south western gardens. This plant is used to make Tequila.
It may look beautiful but it is best viewed from afar as this plant is potentially dangerous. It has needle like points at the ends of their leaves which will impale your skin or worse. There are also serrated barbs on the edges of their leaves this plant is typical of the types that are for tough desert environments. The color blue in the garden is unusual and that is a virtue of this plant. The serrated edges also mentioned make for unusual and interesting source of highlighting after dark. This specimen above was perfectly cross lighted with 2 “wall wash” style floodlights with 3 watt sixty degree LED lamps. They are placed at about 18″ from the plant on both to the left and right of it and the light beams are meant to intercept one another to achieve this cross lighting effect.
The plant really “pops” and becomes a focal point in itself when viewed in its setting.
I really enjoy lighting natural rough textured stone as its a texture created by stone artisans by hand with chisels and masonry hammers. No two stones are ever alike. This project below has an extensive amount of it covering much of the exterior walls of the estate.
When a homeowner spends this kind of money on this type of custom amenity it would be a sin to leave it in darkness at night. Placing 3 watt LED 30 degree narrow floods approximately 12″ from the stone walls between the windows is what we did to create these effects. Not only is it strikingly beautiful but the light colored stone is also highly reflective and creates a good deal of ambient usable light to see by. Unneven surfaces like these are a natural for creating texture in the garden after dark by way of quality landscape LED lighting built to last.
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 .
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