You’ve prepared your patio and cleaned out garden furniture for spring and summer entertaining – but what about lighting your outdoor spaces?
You might only opt for twinkling fairy lights, strategic lanterns or solar powered lights to boost your mood – but top garden designer Andrew Duff (andrewduffgardendesign.com), managing director of London’s Inchbald School of Design, warns you’re going to run into pitfalls avoid.
“The main thing is over-lighting. If you light up a garden and make it too bright, you lose the wonderful mystery of the space,” Duff said.”The market has become very mature now and people are aware that there is specialized garden lighting, and people are hiring garden lighting experts to light their gardens for them.
“But people still think more is better — the brighter the light, the better. But it actually washes the area with light, so it’s really gentle.”
Solar lighting is not suitable for heavily illuminating steps or other areas that need to be clearly visible, Duff said.”Solar lighting is very gentle, it’s just a subtle glow. You can’t use it for security or lighting steps. It’s just small pulses of light through planting, like we might use fairy lights or lanterns.”
“We’re seeing a massive return to the use of candles, storm lanterns on tables, soft romantic lighting before we overwhelm the garden. Make sure the area around the house is lit, but do a gentle wash that floods the light from the ground so that It doesn’t hit people,” Duff said.”Find a qualified electrician – a good lighting supplier will give you the technical data you need – to make sure everything is safe.
“Gone are the days when the spotlight was on the table as far as the table is concerned. Now we use candle lights like we do in the house. The warm white LED strip works well because it feels natural. If you Bring color into the space and you’re introducing a very different aesthetic. But you can change the lights with the flick of a switch, so you can have a soft white light for dinner, but if your kids want to play or you want more Thrilling stuff, you can change the color.”
“There are so many colors in a garden that you don’t need colored lights if the lighting is right. In a wonderful contemporary garden, the effect of a single color can be almost sculptural, but be careful not to overcomplicate color choices,” Dat said. husband said.
“It’s not necessary. A lot of the new lights on the market have wiring, which is really thin and tiny. There are no longer big, thick armored cables because they’re so low power,” Duff said.”You don’t always need to channel the big stuff. You can hide it in plantings and gravel. When the patio is flickering with soft lights, think about what features you can highlight in your garden. It might be lighting up a sculptural planter Or a tree behind.”
“A lot of people think it’s the best thing if you put the light under the tree, but it’s actually better to put it in the front so that the light goes through it and creates an amazing shadow on whatever is behind it … all you have to do is experiment,” Duff advises.”It doesn’t need to be permanent. Play with your lights until you get it right. The plant grows and it covers the light, so it’s nice to have lighting to reposition in the garden.”
“A pond light that goes into the water can illuminate edge plants. But think about what your pond will be used for,” says Duff.”If you want it to attract wildlife, the lights can really put them off. I don’t usually recommend lighting a pond.
“Of course, if you light a pond in the water, you can see the bottom, which is never very appealing. But there are a series of solar lights that just float on top and can have a really nice effect, like little stars.”
“Downlights work well on trees if you want to accentuate the structure of the stems, the wonderful bark and the planting underneath. The key is to make the downlights as invisible as possible, so I always opt for a matte black finish , with a small, low-voltage capability, it just disappears into the tree.”
Post time: Apr-19-2022
