Clients of Exterior Worlds who seek to illuminate their Houston landscaping elements with the very best possible effects should consider investing in an outdoor fiber optic lighting system.  This type of lighting admittedly is the most expensive form of landscape feature lighting one can buy.  Once installed, however, it is far less expensive to operate and maintain.  Optical cable requires far less power to produce light.  It also transmits light in a way unlike any other type of lighting.

Glass or plastic filaments are tied to a remote power and lighting source.  This source is tied to a controller that shines the light through the filament and manipulates it with a flywheel controlled by preprogrammed patterns.  Different colors of the spectrum can be rotated through the system to create special effects not possible with other types of landscape lights.

Outdoor fiber optic lighting cables can be installed anywhere.  As a completely heat free light source, they are ideal for lighting vegetation.  When used to illuminate gardens, they are often placed in a glass fixture housing that bundles the fibers together in a configuration that allows them to emit light in different directions at different intervals.  While the housing may be the same as that used to contain halogen lamps, the brightness is much higher, and the lighting effects far more diverse.  Many gardens can be lit with only one or two fixtures using this method.

Similar techniques can be used to up light and down light other types of vegetation.  Trees rank among the most important Houston landscaping elements.  They create the sense that everything around them is lifted up.  Lighting trees is essential in order to preserve this effect at night.  The wide range of effects that optical cables produce allows them to be adapted to the unique features of individual tree species. 

Yet even more Houston landscaping elements can also be illuminated with these multi-dimensional lighting arrays.  Outdoor fiber optic lighting is often used to showcase the vertical impact of landscape architecture.  Multi-level decks can be lit on all levels by networking concealed cables into various angles of lighting incidence.  This creates patterns of lighting on surfaces that bring out the richness of wood colors.  There is also the opportunity to add different colors of light for even more effect.

This same multi-dimensional effect can be extended to other hardscapes.  Outdoor fiber optic lighting can be molded into hardscapes to light the actual surface from within.  This lighting can take on many forms, depending upon the particular style of Houston landscaping design it is intended to support.  One of the more popular patterns for optical cable lighting is the star pattern.  This pattern deliberately emulates the night sky, enhancing patios, floors in outdoor buildings, and the underwater walls and floorings of swimming pools.

Perhaps the most spectacular effects of outdoor fiber optic lighting, however, are seen in the illumination of water.  Koi ponds can be lit from within without risk of overheating the water.  Waterfalls can appear as a full spectrum of color by grouping all the primary colors of the rainbow in key locations.  Swimming pools can also be lit with brilliant primary colors, combinations of colors, or star field emulations to produce an aesthetic equal to that of luxury pools in resort hotels.