Landscape Lighting Design Houston

We enjoy other people’s landscape lighting and are considering installing some in our yards. What benefits should we expect?
Landscape lighting adds a theatrical element to your landscape by enhancing the way light and shadow play together. You can showcase certain aspects, such as beautiful trees and a garden arch, or downplay a less desirable feature by leaving it dark. From a value-added viewpoint, it is a relatively inexpensive way to increase your property’s worth.

It also provides security and safe access—through gates and entryways or across a flagstone patio, for example. Our clients tell us that they love coming home from work after dark and still being able to enjoy the outdoors due to their landscape lights. In other words, the landscape is now a 24-hour pleasure. We call it artistry with lights.

Will you please educate us on the different types of landscape lighting?
There are many types of lighting techniques, each serving a particular purpose:

• Up-lighting: Because up-lighting is dramatic, it is very effective for small trees or trees with interesting shapes. We generally recommend mercury vapor lights when up-lighting trees since incandescents or halogens have a tendency to make trees look dead. Conversely, incandescents work well for uplighting garden arbors and outdoor gazebos.
• Down-lighting: Downlighting casts quirky shadows on the ground, similar to the moon’s effect. We use mercury vapor for this technique because it brings out the greens of plants.
• Feature lighting: If your yard is your stage, then feature lighting is your spotlight. We use it to highlight outdoor water fountains, sculptures and other garden structures. Incandescent bulbs are recommended for feature lighting because of their ability to bring out the colors in building materials like brick, wood and stone.
• Architectural illumination: We use this concept to showcase the architecture of the home. A variety of landscape lights and techniques is used.
• High voltage lighting: Great for lighting extensive lawn areas or large trees, most high voltage lighting uses mercury vapor.
• Low voltage lights: We recommend these lights, usually 12 volts, for pathway lighting and for lighting small items such as urns, address markers and garden sculptures. They are less expensive to install than high voltage since they don’t require conduit.
• Incandescent lights: Incandescents are invaluable in lighting a landscape because they are dimmable, thereby ratcheting up the drama. Using the old fashioned tungsten filament, they bring out the colors in masonry, wood, stucco and other architectural features.

What can Exterior Worlds tell us about the installation process?
Expertise is essential in landscape lighting design, planning and installation. Since you don’t want to see the nuts and bolts of the systems—you just want to see the beautiful effect the landscape lights create—about 50 percent of the technical work has to do with placement. When done poorly, you wind up seeing too much of the fixtures or with glares.

We also recommend mechanical time clocks to our clients. They help cut down on the use of electricity especially for feature lighting, up-lighting and architectural lighting. Another practical device, timers save you from having to remember to turn the lights on and off.