Landscape Lighting the Right Way

If you love the outdoors and you love your home, chances are that you’ve spent quite a bit of time and money on landscaping. And then you get to see it for only the sunlit half of the day. At night all that effort slips into the dark — still there, but impossible to visually enjoy.

That’s where illumination comes in. Strategically placed lights will not only unveil your hard work, but can also add to the aesthetics of a beautifully landscaped property.

The effect, however, is best when achieved artfully. According to Richard Donno, owner and operator of Donno Landscaping of Dix Hills, N.Y., the days of using just backyard floodlights are over. Big lights are good for safety purposes, he says, but for aesthetic lighting you want subtlety.

As with any landscaping technique, the applications are only as limitless as your imagination. “Personally, I like to do what we call ‘moon lighting,’ ” he says, “where if we’ve got big trees on the property, we can light them downward so it looks like there’s a moon out. You get the shadows and the forms of the trees on the lawn or on the patio. It’s a really relaxing, tranquil look.”

You can also light the house itself, especially if the architecture is interesting, or if it’s well integrated with the overall landscape design. Lighting the walls also creates a nice effect by silhouetting the adjacent trees and bushes.

No matter your strategy, one thing Donno warns against is too much lighting. “You don’t accent- light everything that’s there, especially on a larger piece of land,” he says. Stick to illuminating the major or most attractive features — not every tree, boulder and stone wall throughout the yard. “You might light up a hedge that’s on a two-acre piece of property, just to know where those boundaries are.”

Connect with Donno Landscaping, Inc. www.donnolandscaping.com

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