LIGHTER SIDE OF LANDSCAPING

Suburbia at night often alternates between gloom and glare. But it needn’t, say landscape lighting experts. Homeowners today have many options for lighting their yards and gardens that avoid those extremes.

“The night scene could be a wonderland,” says David Hertzberg of Allied Lighting in Costa Mesa. “Twinkling lights in trees, uplighting on dramatic plants, walls washed in light to show off their texture. Homeowners could do all those things. And what a difference it would make in the landscaping.”

Frank Berry of Southwinds Landscaping in Fountain Valley shares the sentiment:

“Homeowners put hours of labor and tons of money into their gardens, yet they’re totally in the dark about how to enjoy them once the sun goes down,” he says. “And that’s a shame. Because that’s when most of us have leisure time.”

If few suburbanites have seen the light regarding garden illumination, perhaps it’s due to lack of exposure. Landscape lighting, after all, is a fairly new phenomenon.

It wasn’t that long ago that only palatial estates had landscape lighting, according to John Lomeli, lighting specialist for DSA, an association of manufacturers’ representatives. And, even in those cases, he says, garden illumination was usually restricted to highlighting statuary.

Landscape lighting as we know it today didn’t emerge until the ‘50s and ‘60s when barbecue grills, swimming pools and other accouterments of outdoor living came into favor, Lomeli said.

In the early stages of landscape lighting, homeowners’ options were extremely limited--cheap “Malubu” kit lights or pricey institutional-caliber fixtures. “There was nothing in between,” Hertzberg says. But in the last few decades--and last few years, in particular--outdoor fixtures in mid-range prices have become plentiful.

Competition has brought improvements, such as more corrosion-resistant materials and refined photometrics. One of the most exciting improvements, in Hertzberg’s opinion, has been the adaptation of low-voltage halogen lamps for the outdoors. Though the fixtures required for these lamps are small compared to regular incandescent fixtures, halogen bulbs are able to project intense light over distance.

“They’re extremely precise,” he says. “So instead of flooding a large area with light, you can narrow in on what you want to highlight and leave the rest in shadows. And that’s nice. You want contrast. That’s what adds mystery to landscaping at night.”

Low-voltage halogen fixtures are ideal for accent lighting, and deciding what you want to accent should be the first step in devising a landscape lighting plan.

“Take an inventory of your plant material and architectural features,” Lomeli suggests. “Do you have a tree with interesting bark? Or great roses? Or a beautiful birdbath? Or a collection of handsome pots filled with seasonal color?

“Embellish your accents and mask what’s not so attractive by leaving it dark.”

Once you decide what to accent, determine how . For that tree with the interesting bark, for instance, you might want to place a fixture so that its light will shine directly across the bark, creating shadows on its surface and emphasizing its texture, a technique called grazing. For the birdbath, perhaps spotlighting is the way to go. And for the roses, possibly moonlighting. In this last technique, fixtures are placed high in trees or on buildings to cast soft, diffused downlighting.

Alternative techniques are silhouetting, shadowing, uplighting, and cross-lighting.

After you’ve made these decision, and only then, consider fixtures.

“People tend to buy fixtures based on their appearance, but this is one time when function really is primary,” Berry says. “In fact some of the best fixtures are the ones you don’t see.”

The second stage in landscape lighting, Lomeli says, is deciding what areas need further illumination for safety. (Accent lighting will spill over into these areas and fill some of that need.) Walkways, changes in elevation and bodies of water should all be adequately defined through lighting.

Walkways can be illuminated in a number of ways. A series of path lights (on-line or low-voltage incandescent or compact fluorescent) on either side of the path is a common solution. Eave-mounted downlights or fiber optic cabling outlining the pathways are alternate ideas.

Downlights, mounted in eaves and/or under handrails, also provide good lighting for stairs. Step-light fixtures, which usually have faceplates or white acrylic lenses to deflect glare, mounted under the nose of stair treads are another option. A strip of mini-lights under the rail caps is a third possibility.

Though most swimming pools, spas and hot tubs already have underwater lights, you might want to further define their boundaries. Mounting fiber optic cabling under the pool coping to create an outline is a glamorous alternative. So is rimming a hot tub with low-voltage mini-lights. Don’t forget to illuminate koi ponds, bog gardens or other bodies of water for safety.

Next, says Lomeli, look at task lighting. Do you want to dine or read on the patio after dark? Is there a grassy lawn your children would like to play on in the evening? For full use of your outdoor space, these areas should be lighted too.

Finally, consider security. Though any landscape lighting helps to deter criminal intrusion, you might want to provide additional lighting in areas of special vulnerability, such as garage entrances or infrequently used side yards, possibly linking the lighting to a motion detector.

Modern electronics don’t need to be relegated only to security lighting though. Why not link path lights to a motion detector, for instance, so that any time a family member steps into the garden after dark, the lights come on? Rheostats have their place outdoors, too, Lomeli says.

“They’re great for patio dining. Turn them up during dinner, then dim them for coffee and cognac.” Being able to dim pool lights is also a nice option, he says.

Whatever your tastes and budget, it’s important to keep in mind the overall mood you want to create as you plan your lighting.

Hertzberg says he likes drama in the evening landscape, and therefore favors lots of low-voltage halogen fixtures which preserve areas of darkness.

Lomeli likes this approach too.

“Look at Rodeo Drive at night,” he says. “The store windows really jump out at you because the rest of the street is fairly dark.”

High drama isn’t everyone’s style, however.

If families use their yards more for activities than quiet contemplation, Berry says, a greater level of general illumination might be preferred. That was the case with the Chiu family residence in Cowan Heights.

“The Chius didn’t want to lose the space to darkness,” he says. “They wanted to see all the perimeters. But they wanted the light to be soft.”

For this reason, Berry says, he relied primarily on fluorescent lighting, which provides broad beams of light covering large areas, and he used low-voltage lighting only to accent a few special features like the waterfalls cascading into the pool.

An ultimate consideration for most people will be cost.

Low-voltage lighting is one of the least expensive options since its wiring does not need to run through a conduit but can be buried in a shallow trench or even run on top of the ground. Installation is also simple enough that many homeowners would be comfortable doing their own work. Fiber optics, on the other hand, is definitely a champagne-budget option.

If you can’t do everything at once, consider installing the plan in stages, Lomeli says. This is a particularly good option for a new home, he says.

“Install all your wiring while plant materials are immature,” he suggests. “It’s always easier than after the landscaping has filled in.”

Then put in essential fixtures for safety and tasks, and add accent fixtures as the landscaping develops and your budget allows.

“There’s no point illuminating a trellis when all it holds are the first scrawny tendrils of a vine anyway,” Lomeli says. “It will just look like scaffolding. So waiting to buy fixtures until it fills in is no hardship.”

Homeowners with “average suburban yards” can expect to pay $3,500 to $5,000 for a complete landscape lighting plan that combines on-line and low-voltage fixtures, Berry says. If that’s too steep for your budget, take heart. You can do a lot with several hundred dollars, as Hertzberg demonstrated recently at one of Allied’s home demonstrations at a residence in Costa Mesa.

Since the home’s pathway was already well illuminated by an entrance fixture and street lighting situated close to the property, Hertzberg determined all that was really need to complete the nightscape was accent lighting.

One low-voltage fixture with a broad beam spread brought the crimson hues of a bougainvillea out of the shadows as well as accenting artemisias in the vicinity. A second fixture, directed upward into its canopy, showed off the fronds of a tree fern. A third created foliage shadows on the handsome stones of a garage wall paralleling the entrance walkway. And three more circled a small strand of birch in one corner of the lawn, highlighting their white bark.

The dramatic change in that home’s lighting was achieved with six 20-watt halogens (about $40 each) and one transformer (about $75), says Hertzberg.

“We haven’t eliminated darkness,” Hertzberg said “We’ve enchanted it.”

*

The effect you want to achieve and your skill level will help you decide if you want to install landscape lighting yourself or hire a lighting expert to do the job.

If you decide to tackle the job yourself, you might start by visiting lighting supply stores to familiarize yourself with the wide range of fixtures that have come onto the market in recent years. Watch store videos on landscape lighting techniques. Look at manufacturers’ brochures. Some of them are full of good information. Kichler’s, for instance, describes and illustrates lighting techniques, suggests steps for designing a low-voltage system, diagrams suggested cable layouts and provides charts for determining cable lengths and spacing path lights.

Most landscape lighting books on the market were written for the trade and are quite technical, but you might want to consult Janet Lennox Moyer’s “The Landscape Lighting Book” (John Wiley & Sons) for ideas. Sunset’s “The Complete Patio Book” also has landscape lighting illustrations. For information on doing your own wiring, consult Sunset’s “Home Lighting Handbook” and Sunset’s “Basic Home Wiring Illustrated.”

Creativity and low-volt lamps bring a yard’s best out of the shadows while leaving the rest in the dark