Nightscaping: The Art of Landscape Lighting

By Keith Klamer

Houses that are discreetly-lit during the night time hours just seem so warm and inviting -- even magical. Outdoor lighting contractors have even started using a term which encompasses the art and science of taking even a modest home and landscape and changing it into a charming resort after the sun slips over the horizon: nightscaping.

Nightscaping involves the judicious placement of lights in or near bushes, trees and architectural features for either aesthetic , safety or security reasons. Sometimes, nightscaping accomplishes all three of these goals at the same time. For example, lighting up the outdoor walkways of a house improves their appearance, adds to their safety for pedestrians and enhances their security, as well. There are as many different types of lights, and lighting schemes, as there are landscapes. Here are just a few of the main ones:

Accent Lights

Their name should tell you what they're about: accentuating some feature of a house or landscape, with the objective of increasing its beauty. Accent lights can illuminate a sidewalk, light a tree or outline shrubbery. They can either uplight that feature - meaning its light is aimed upward, or downlight it, which means the light is pointed either straight down or at a downward slant. Each technique has its own advantages. For example, uplighting will highlight the height of something - a tree or wall - while downlighting will do just the opposite, making that feature appear more diminutive, friendlier, if you will.

Floodlights

Once again, a floodlight's purpose is implied in its name - it floods an area with light so that it can be used just as easily during the night as it can during the day. Sometimes floodlights are utilized for security reasons; in other cases, they are used to make a space more accessible - such as lighting up a tennis court or a driveway, so that people can see what they're doing more easily.

Security Lights

The most typical security lights are floodlights, as seen above. The most prevalent of all are motion-activated floodlights, which only come on when they sense someone moving. Motion-activated lights can scare the, well, daylights out of criminals -- and give neighborhood dog-walkers a scare too!

Probably the smartest thing to do is to call a landscape lighting contractor or local landscape lighting company. Ask their advice about nightscaping your particular landscape ; you'll find their answers very "illuminating"!

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