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| Landscaping and other exterior elements tend to blend into the darkness when the sun goes down.
It’s amazing how the right lights can transform an outdoor space into an enchanted night-time setting. |
Great lighting design starts with a careful plan. Lighting designers Gary Novasel and Rachel Pfeiffer of Patdo Light Studio provided some helpful lighting techniques for the various features in a yard. |
Trees with twisting branches and colorful leaves can be lit from the bottom up, to focus attention on their natural beauty. This technique is known as uplighting. |
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| Lighting features from the top downward, which simulates moonlight, is known as downlighting. |
Water features like this pond can benefit from light on a central focal feature, such as a waterfall. A nearby tree can also provide placement of a downward-pointing light, illuminating the whole pond and the surrounding plantings. |
Arbors with well-established vine canopies can be lit from below, while those without greenery can be lit from above. |
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| Fountains have a combination of detailed craftsmanship and sparkling water, which can both benefit from a single fixture. |
Large trees can darken a room at night. By illuminating a tree like this that's just outside, the windows become transparent again and the light brings that tree "into the room." |
Once the design and lighting fixtures are selected, mark the actual fixture locations with landscaping flags. Then it's time to get to work! |
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| Installation of a low-voltage outdoor lighting project can't happen without transformers, which reduce your household current of 110-120 volts down to a safer level of about 12 volts. |
This transformer from Loran features a series of terminals to which the light fixture wires will be connected. These fuses protect four separate circuits. |
This transformer from Intermatic, on the other hand, has wire terminals on the bottom. This transformer features a built-in timer to switch lights on and off automatically. |
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