When the weather warms, it’s only natural that you want to spend more time outdoors. From cookouts and pool parties to outdoor dinner parties and backyard movie nights, you have plenty of options for outdoor activities this summer. No matter what you get up to, you need the right outdoor lighting to see all the fun you’re having clearly.
Outdoor lighting for landscapes enhances your home’s exterior and inspires different moods based on the light’s color and intensity. Lighting fixtures help you achieve the exact light levels, atmosphere, and contrast you desire. Learn which fixtures are must-haves for a great summer in the yard.
Flood Lights
To illuminate large areas of your home’s exterior with a bright light, install flood lights as part of your landscape lighting plan. Homeowners often install them over patios and driveways.
Installing flood lights is an especially good idea if your block has few street lights. By providing your own intense light, you and your summer guests feel more comfortable walking around your home after dark.
Flood lights are also ideal for helping guests avoid parking on your property where you’d rather they didn’t. Rather than “park in the grass,” you can ask your guests to “park between the color-changing landscape lights lining the driveway.”
Bollard Lights
If you like the idea of planting little rings of light on your property, look to bollard lights. These fixtures don’t have a shield or light cover, so light shines in every direction. Bollard lights are great for lining the path to your front door. Use them to create a path through your garden for short summer night walks in the yard.
Spotlights
“Spotlight” is an all-encompassing term for landscape lights that only point in one direction. Used in specific ways, spotlights become other landscape lighting fixtures. For instance, if you angle a spotlight up at a wall, it becomes an uplight.
Spotlights are versatile lighting because they vary in the area they cover and intensity. Homeowners often use them to illuminate patios, plants, walls, and statues. If there’s a feature of your home’s exterior you want to highlight this summer, bathe it in a spotlight’s glow.
Step Lights
Reduce the chances of you or your summer guests losing their footing on your stairs with step lights. Install them either in the front of the stairs vertically or on the wall next to the stairs.
Other than safety, step lights also create pockets of ambiance along exterior stairways. Experiment with different step light colors until you find one that creates the perfect summer mood.
Downlights and Uplights
Downlights and uplights are other landscape lighting fixtures that are great for drawing the eye to notable property features. You don’t have to miss out on seeing a beautiful tree or architectural wonder on your property when the sun goes down, and neither does anyone else who passes by your house at night when you install uplights.
Aside from highlighting your exterior property, uplights also add contrast to your landscape. Flat surfaces like walls and fences gain depth with uplighting. You can also keep things simple and use an uplight to feature a large, special, or unique tree growing on your property this summer.
Homeowners use downlighting to add depth to water features, raised garden beds, and other ground-level points of interest. If you’re worried about someone stepping on or tripping over a landscape light, use a downlight.
Garden Lights
Did you grow a garden this summer? Keep it lit evenings and lights with garden lights. Show off your prized blooms and shrubs with fixtures that cast light down and out.
When lighting large planting areas like flower beds, use several small lights rather than one sweeping light. This way, you get several overlapping pools of light that don’t cast a harsh glare.
See your home in glorious new light. Landscape lighting fixtures can transform your home and provide plenty of ways to have a wonderful summer in the yard.
