Basic Landscape Lighting Ideas for Your Front and Backyard

Backyard landscaping illuminates a beautiful landscape by a pond

Thoughtful and well-designed landscape lighting greatly impacts the look and feel of your home’s exterior. You want people driving by your house to take a second look at your landscape since what you have created is attractive and beautiful. 

With a little bit of inspiration, you can dramatically enhance your outdoor space, make it more usable, and promote safety. Here are a few landscape lighting ideas for your home to help get you started.

Driveway and Lawn Lighting

Floodlights and spotlights are often used interchangeably because they do similar jobs, but they should be used in different ways.

Floodlights – These throw wide lighting and are useful in illuminating large areas. You can use single or two-bulb lights for your landscape but can use multiple units depending on the layout of the outdoor space. Keep in mind the following when picking floodlights.

  • These are excellent for large open spaces such as the garage area or the driveway.
  • They are best used in areas of large landscaping where detailed lighting is not required.
  • You can pick motion-activated floodlights for different utility areas such as garage doors, driveways, and spaces where you want added security.

Spotlights – These cast a more focused beam of light in an area. Some things you should know about spotlights include the following.

  • They are perfect for architectural lightings or for tree up-lighting as they produce a more narrow beam of light.
  • You can place spotlights on the opposite sides of the areas and aim them to meet in the middle for larger areas.
  • Since spotlights are quite bright, it is best not to point them to common paths or walkways, as this makes it more difficult to see when walking.

Landscape Path Lighting

Paved path with solar landscape path lighting alongside

Path lighting is usually comprised of low-sitting lights that face or reflect downwards and help illuminate walkways or driveways when the sun goes down. Some types of path lights include downlights, garden lights, flush lights, low voltage lights, bollard lights, and others. This helps make your home safer for everyone. Here are some useful ideas on installing pathway lighting for your home.

  • Pathway lights are best placed about 10-15 feet apart from each other depending on the length and the narrowness of the pathway.
  • You can also consider solar pathway lights as they are more economical and maintenance-free.
  • You can find pathway lights in many different styles, sizes, and finishes. Pick a style that will complement the finishes around the house, such as brass, matte black, nickel, and others.
  • For easy setup, choose a path lighting set as it will make installation easy and quick.

Ground Lighting Ideas

Ground or well lights are installed directly in the ground as part of your outdoor lighting scheme. These can help brighten up the garden or yard area and can also be used as accent lights for trees, plants, and shrubs. Some important points about these kinds of lights are –

  • They usually use LED bulbs and are hardwired.
  • They are easy to program and comes with a timer.
  • Some of these can be submerged in water and are perfect to use around the pools.

A Good Starting Point

Use the above landscape lighting ideas as a starting point to design your own outdoor lighting scheme. These are just a few of the basic outdoor lighting options out there. Contact Southwest Stone Supply to learn about many innovative landscape lightings for your front or backyard landscape. We’re here to help!

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