Outdoor lighting is both a functional and aesthetic feature for your landscape. With proper lighting, you can enjoy a moonlit yard—even when the moon is taking the night off—and enhance all the best features of your property. With a wide range of different light source options, there’s something to fit the needs of every unique garden. Here are some reasons why you should consider adding lights to your landscape:
Benefits of Landscape Lighting
Landscape lights don’t just illuminate your beautiful garden after the sun goes down, but they also illuminate your outdoor living space, giving it the proper ambience it deserves. Enjoy those warm summer nights to the fullest by entertaining friends and family on the patio or around the campfire, while still being able to see each other!
You can also use lights to focus attention on certain features of your home and garden—and away from others. Functionally, of course, you can brighten pathways and doorways to make them easier to find for both you and your guests. You can also put your favorite plants, water features, and garden decor in the spotlight, all while drawing attention away from the compost bin and woodpiles.
Functional outdoor lighting also helps to make your home safer in a few ways. By illuminating high-traffic areas, like pathways and stairs, and other structures, you’re decreasing the risk of someone tripping and hurting themselves (goodbye, liability!). Proper lighting will also act as a natural security system. Let’s face it, we all scoot a little faster from our cars to our doors at night, and for obvious reason—it’s dark, we can’t see well, and crime statistically happens more often during the night. An illuminated landscape deters trespassing, theft, and other crimes from occurring on your property, and most importantly, makes your family feel safe in their own home.
Lights are an integral landscape feature that finishes your entire property’s look, ultimately enhancing curb appeal. Their ability to emphasize all the great features of your home and garden, combined with the practicality and safety aspects of illumination, can actually increase your property value. So, if you’re looking to sell your home here in the Quad City area in the future, outdoor lighting is a worthwhile investment!
Benefits of Low-Voltage Landscape Lighting
Low-voltage lights, like LED bulbs, are a great way to illuminate pathways and other areas of your property. Don’t be fooled by the terminology—these bulbs still give off brilliant illumination! Side note: while halogen bulbs are low-voltage and were popular in the past, LED lights are the standard now because of their undeniable advantages!
The biggest benefit to using low-voltage, LED bulbs compared to other bulb options is that they use much less energy. Not only is energy conservation much more environmentally-friendly, but it’s also friendly on the wallet, too! The higher the efficiency, the lower your electric bill will be, and you’ll also have to replace them less frequently.
This type of garden lighting is also safer and easier to install. At such a low voltage (30-volts or less), there’s little to no risk of shock during installation and the bulbs themselves aren’t hot to touch, so you don’t have to worry about curious pets and children burning themselves.
Solar-Powered Landscape Lights
If you’re looking for something that has even less of an impact on the environment, or if you don’t have outdoor access to an electrical outlet, then solar-powered lights are the way to go! They absorb sunshine all day long and use that energy to charge their batteries, giving them the ability to power themselves at night. The biggest trick to using solar-powered lights is making sure they can get enough sun during the day. Place them in an area that receives full sun and isn’t shaded by trees, but be aware that you may not get a full charge on a cloudy day in the Quad City area.
Solar lawn lights are most often used to illuminate pathways and driveways, while string solar lights and lanterns add decoration and ambience to outdoor living spaces.
Laser Landscape Lighting
You might be familiar with landscape laser projectors for their growing popularity around the holiday season. I mean, who wants to drag out the ladder in freezing temperatures and staple string lights to their houses piece by piece, only to take them down again a few weeks later, when you could simply point a projector at the house and call it a day? While this is one way to use lasers, you can also swap the Christmas colors for soft whites, and use them to brighten your outdoor living spaces year-round!
Whether it’s for visual appeal and ambience or safety and security—or a combination of both—the value of adding outdoor lighting to your home is clear. If you’re looking to invest in outdoor lights, we offer a variety of landscape and garden design services here at Meyer. Our professionals will help you choose the right type of lighting and placement to enhance your property both visually and functionally!