If you thought your landscape lighting design only helped improve the look of your home, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn that your outdoor lighting can do so much more for you.

Without question, installing landscape lighting around your home brings you a lot of aesthetic value and can improve your curb appeal dramatically, but your landscape lighting also triples as both a security element and also a deterrent for bugs.

Even the biggest outdoor enthusiasts can agree that time spent outdoors can be quickly ruined by a pesky swarm of bugs or worse yet, a determined group of mosquitos. Fortunately, landscape lighting can help keep those pesky bugs and insects away.

I’m sure you’ve had at least one experience where you turned on a light outside at night and witnessed a group of bugs swarm towards the light. To avoid this, the solution is as simple as changing the bulbs in your outdoor light fixtures.

On the light spectrum, different colours of light are seen at different wavelengths. Like humans, insects and bugs cannot see the entire spectrum of light. So, the higher the wavelength of the light, the less likely a bug or insect is to detecting the colour.

Warm Colours

Warm light colours such as red, orange and yellow have the highest wavelengths. So naturally, you’ll want to use warm coloured bulbs in your outdoor lighting design in order to deter large swarms of bugs and insects. Yellow compact florescent bulbs, sodium vapour bulbs and halogen bulbs are lighting options that tend to decrease bug and insect activity.

LED Lights

LED lights are another great outdoor lighting option for keeping bugs away, as they emit little to no ultraviolet (UV) light. Insects and bugs are able to detect UV light, so having bulbs that emit no light and no heat will help keep bugs away. When it comes to LED lights, the lower the Kelvin (K) temperature, the more yellow the light will appear.

Be careful when it comes to incorporating large or low quality LED lights into your lighting design, as once the temperature reaches about 6,000 Kelvins, the LED will start to emit a blue tint that bugs and insects will pick up on.

Make Smart Purchases

Knowing which bulbs to use in your outdoor lighting fixtures will go a long way in keeping bugs and insects away from your illuminated outdoor space, but sometimes a good price may be hard to pass up. Just remember when shopping for new bulbs for your landscape lighting design that the cheapest option may not always be the best one. That’s not to say you can’t find reasonably priced warm-coloured bulbs and LED lights, but it’s important to think about how the lights you purchase will contribute to, or take away from, the overall look of your outdoor space.

When it comes to bugs and insects, there is no way to keep them away 100 per cent of the time. If one insect picks up on a light, others tend to follow in the same direction. But taking steps to minimize bug presence will certainly get you closer to having a less bugs in your outdoor space. For more information on outdoor lighting design and how to use the right bulbs in your outdoor space, contact one of our lighting design experts today!