Green Thumb Landscape Services

Light Up Your Landscape
By Beth Marie Renaund

Well-placed garden lighting does more than turn night into day. It can transform a dark, mute garden into a lively room to enjoy year-round, whether outdoors in good weather or as a living tableau when you're housebound by rain or snow.

Lighting the landscape can be an expensive proposition if done through 120-volt household current. An economical option is low-voltage lighting. At only 12 volts of power, it is safe, easy to install, and relatively inexpensive to operate: six low-voltage lights use less power than one 75-watt incandescent bulb. The fixtures, wiring, and a transformer to reduce household current are easy to install, and mounted fixtures can easily be moved as plants grow or lighting needs change.

The key to outdoor lighting is deciding what features of your garden to emphasize: a particularly magnificent tree, a colorful bed of annuals, or perhaps a sculpture, a fountain, or an arbor. By selecting which features to light, you create an outdoor room with depth, dimension, and interesting focal points. You can determine what is seen -- and not seen. Unsightly aspects of the garden can recede into the shadows while favorite features come to life.