Landscape lighting is a great way to add creativity and life to your night time landscape. It can turn an average landscape into a wonderful place to enjoy with friends at night with friends and family.
First, you want to choose your lighting type for your project. Fountains do best with a submersible light. Submersible landscape lights are placed below the surface of the water in the basin and pointed upward toward the body of it. They help to create a shimmering effect as well as illuminate the fountain. It also illuminates the streams of water being sprayed into the basin of the fountain. A good way to add some creativity is to use color filters. Many times lights will come with colored lenses that can add a great deal of ambience to your landscape.
Another option is to use non-submersible lighting that is placed at the base of the water feature. Landscape lighting options include solar, incandescent or LED landscape lighting. Solar landscape lighting is very popular these days because they are so easy to install, use no electricity and have a much less negative effect on the environment. LED lighting is also a great choice because it is much less expensive than traditional incandescent lighting (saves as much as 50% on power usage) and can last much longer as well. Moonlight globes are a great option for large water features such as ponds, pools and large fountains. They are battery operated free floating globes that light up and create a stunning effect in the landscape. They can be permanently installed around the perimeter of the water features to create permanent lighting. For parties, these are fantastic because the battery operated versions can be put away and stored for later use. A great feature with these globes is the speakers that they can come with because they create great ambience.
Studying your specific site and the particular setting that your water feature is in is important to determine the type of lighting that you would want to use. In some cases, up lighting is the best choice and in other situations down lighting may be preferred. Or as mentioned above, using landscape lighting from within could be the preferred method.
Some lights can be incorporated in to the design of the fountain (if it is custom made) so that the lighting is obscure and nonintrusive while other fountains will require over head lighting to be attached to surrounding trees or other structures such as a building, pergola, or lamp post.
Choosing the correct lighting techniques for your fountain will take a little planning on your part. You will want to experiment with a flashlight at night to see exactly the locations that will best serve you for your fountain lighting project. Many times fountains are the centerpiece of the garden and need to been lighted more heavily. My advice is to choose fountain lights that will accentuate and illuminate your fountain without overpowering the surrounding landscape. Do a little research and planning prior to starting the project to insure that the results are what you desired.
Author Resource:
My name is Carey Dodson and I am a landscape designer with over 20 years of design, installation and maintenance experience and a graduate of Texas Tech University with a Bachelors Degree of Landscape Architecture. Ready to learn creative ways to use landscape lighting? Visit The Landscape Lighting Site to learn how!
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