How to Create Natural Outdoor Lighting Effects For Your Gardens

Updated July 19, 2023

Natural outdoor landscape lighting garden and pathway

How to Create Natural Outdoor Lighting Effects For Your Gardens

Natural outdoor landscape lighting effects on garden

Many people think of the illuminating the front of their house for security or safety or curb appeal, but don’t forget to softscape gardens. You’ve worked hard to make your garden spectacular during the day, why not also enjoy them at night!

Come nightfall, a garden takes on a different and even enchanting feel.  However, it’s hard to enjoy your beautiful garden if you can’t see it very well!  Aside from simply planting white flowers, you can make your garden glow in the evenings with professionally designed and installed outdoor lighting.

Growing the perfect garden is not an easy task. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to create a garden that you’re proud to show off to friends, family members, neighbours and those just strolling by. With a garden that you put so much energy into, why let it go unnoticed after the sun has gone down? With a landscape lighting design, your beautiful garden won’t fade into the darkness of the night. Instead, it will be on display for all to see at any hour of the day or night.

If your garden deserves to be illuminated at night with natural outdoor lighting effects, consider installing a landscape lighting design using at least one or more of these lighting types and techniques.

Here are our expert’s top 10 types of outdoor lighting for your garden:

String Lights

Often used for narrow gardens along the perimeter of your property or in trees, these lights can create a warm and inviting ambiance as part of the outdoor lighting on your property. These lights can be hung along fences, in pergolas, or even directly on the branches of trees. The soft glow or gentle twinkling can evoke a bit of fairy magic or romantic elegance.

Up Lighting Creates Depth

This landscape lighting technique can create depth and show off the varied textures of your garden features. To achieve this a light is placed in a lower position and directed up at the feature being accented. This effect works well with trees, foliage or other taller garden features.

Down Lighting Mimics Natural Moonlight

As the name implies, this technique is the inverse of up lighting. A light is placed above the feature being accented, illuminating it from above. This type of landscape lighting is quite popular and especially effective at creating a natural effect, showing off the garden features in a way that mimics how it would be seen on a bright evening where the moon and stars are shining bright.

This technique can also be used in the branches of a large tree to light up the tree and the gardens below. This type of outdoor lighting not only illuminates gardens, but provides good general area lighting.

Highlight The Tall Flowers First

Consider adding downlights to nearby fences or posts. This should be a narrow light, not a glaring spotlight or floodlight, to add height to the design. Be sure to consider balance and symmetry where possible. From there, you can move into smaller areas and focus on highlighting individual plants.

Ensure Garden Lights Enhance Overall Outdoor Lighting Design

It’s tempting just to add outdoor lighting to the pathways around the garden, but there’s so many more possibilities than that to really show off your yard and gardens! A beautifully lit garden will look out of place if the rest of your property is under-lit or features few too many fixtures.

Do's and Don'ts of landscape lighting design

Do – Use lights to improve the safety of garden walkways.

This will ensure that all areas, especially those that change levels (steps and stairs) receive the right level of lighting to prevent trips and falls.

Do– Prevent glare.

Use shields to ensure that the light is properly directed.

Do – Illuminate shrubs and other shadowy areas to improve security.

Shining a light on these areas will eliminate possible intrusion points and improve the overall safety of your garden and yard.

Do– Make use of uplighting for a natural look.

Uplighting draws the eye upwards, giving the plants in your garden the illusion of size and grandeur.

Do – Get creative with specialty lighting and coloured bulbs.

Coloured lights can add unique textures and effects to you garden, highlighting the shades that appear naturally on your property.

Do – Consider daylighting lighting options.

When planning your garden lighting design, be sure to take dawn, dusk, and evening activities into consideration. This is when you’re most likely to be utilizing your garden for parties and social gatherings. Play with effects in these lighting situations in order to produce the perfect mood.

Do – Consider Small Areas

Sometimes the biggest impacts can be made through the smallest lighting improvements. Consider highlighting smaller features or areas of your garden in order to increase the “wow” factor of your design.

Do – Create And Make Use Of Shadows

Allow moving foliage and shadows to add interest and create depth to avoid a flat-looking design in your yard. Know where you want to draw a visitor’s eye and create a visual surprise! Make sure that you avoid positioning any beams on open trellises, bare trees, or spindly branches.

Do – Use Hoods And Light Shields

Many pathway and post lights come with hoods or light shields to help direct the light down. Play with the height of these to create visual interest without blinding guests as they walk by or annoying neighbours.

Do – Experiment With Wattages And Beam Spreads

Use different wattages and beam spreads in order to create a truly unique lighting experience in your garden.

Tiki Lights Add Flair

These fixtures are versatile and cast great light. Nothing creates a more romantic ambiance than candles with their flames flickering in the breeze, creating shadows and reflections. They add that magical feel to your garden, but still have style.Natural outdoor landscape lighting effects on garden, gazebo and ponds

Why Use A Professional Installer For Your Outdoor Lighting System

When it comes to lighting your outdoor garden, professional installers will have a variety of options of lighting products and light sources.

At Nite Time Decor, we use state-of-the art lighting fixtures and systems that are perfect for homes, patios, pools, walkways and gardens. Our professionally installed systems are “line volted” which uses the same reliable 120 volts your house uses. These are placed and left in one place.

To get the most natural outdoor lighting results in your garden, we recommend contacting a professional landscape lighting company like Nite Time Décor, located in Oakville, Ontario. Our lighting design experts will listen to your needs and help you create the perfect outdoor lighting design for your garden and property.

Create Visual Interest That Works At Night And During The Day

Give some thought to placement with pathway lighting along your gardens. Avoid straight lines down both sides of the path which can resemble an airport runway. Instead, stagger them while still giving light for safety but strategically choosing which plants are illuminated.

Haphazardly throwing a few spotlights amongst the shrubs will leave you ultimately disappointed and will not look natural. While there are no hard and fast rules for garden lighting (every garden is different, after all!), but doing so shouldn’t ruin the look of your garden during the day.

The ideal garden lighting installation is inconspicuous and looks natural – you notice the lighting effects at night, but the fixtures don’t attract your attention during the day. This landscape lighting design is difficult to achieve when working with solar power fixtures as the solar batteries require direct sunlight in order to charge during the day.

Low-voltage lights or energy efficient LED lighting fixtures are a much more economical and natural aesthetically appealing option.

Position Light To Shine On An Angle

It doesn’t matter whether the light source is positioned above or below your garden, just make sure that most of the light is positioned to shine in on an angle. Direct front lighting is very unnatural and can wash out your landscaping.  Angled and side lighting results in better modelling and will create a more interesting shadow effect in the end and look natural.

Create Pools Of Light In Gardens

Garden landscape lighting ideas

When lighting large flower beds for a natural lighting effect, many professional designers will choose to use many smaller lights rather than one large lamp. When placed correctly, these lights will create soft overlapping pools of light rather than one harsh beam. These areas of overlap can be places where you need stronger lighting for cooking, reading, etc.

Contact Nite Time Decor

You spend a great deal of time, effort, and money on your garden. Make sure it looks lovely long after the sun has set with sophisticated outdoor lighting from Nite Time Decor.

If you are looking to create a natural outdoor lighting effect on your property and garden, contact us today to receive a custom quote from one of our professional designers.  We service homeowners in Burlington, Oakville, Mississauga, Halton and Hamilton region.

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