Displaying items by tag: landscape lighting residential

With the time change, have you noticed the mornings are darker? Have you noticed it is more difficult to see around your yard? Thinking safety might be a concern for friends and family? Not security, but safety. You don’t want your friends and family tripping over low bushes, or tripping on the steps that were designed to blend in with the landscaping.

Have you noticed that some of your landscape lighting is not working? You have changed the bulbs, and there is still a problem. So, you do an Internet search and most of the sites say the problem is probably a bad connection. eHow.com states “landscape lighting wire is buried under the ground and has splices. The ground is a hostile environment that will corrode and damage wire splices, interrupting the electrical connection.”

Are you one of those who makes a New Year’s resolution, but really doesn’t keep it? Has upgrading your landscaping been on your list of resolutions for a few years?

As you drive up to your house at night, you notice it needs some lights. You want it to look like the neighbor’s on the right with soft lights that seem to have been placed with an artistic eye. You don’t want it to look like the neighbor’s on the left who some nights might be mistaken for a UFO.

“The landscape is like being there with a powerful personality and I’m searching for just the right angles to make that portrait come across as meaningfully as possible.” Galen Rowell

What is the personality of your landscape?

Edward Abbey stated “You can’t study the darkness by flooding it with light.” Yet, you can study the darkness by illuminating it with light. The key is knowing the difference between flooding and illuminating.

Some people think landscape lighting is purchasing a few floodlights so the nighttime looks like the daytime. But, then you lose the magic of the nighttime.

So, what does it mean to illuminate your landscape to study the darkness?

“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

This is true of people and landscapes. Your landscape can sparkle and shine in the sunshine, but what does it look like in the dark? It is dark and foreboding? Does it contain hidden hazards? Are there shadows that are slightly scary?

Why not make your landscape have true beauty in the night? How can that happen?

“I like to make the mundane fabulous whenever I can.” (Rufus Wainwright) We couldn’t agree more with this American-Canadian singer, songwriter, and composer. We also like to take the mundane landscaping and make it fabulous. How do we do that?