Garden Lighting Extending Enjoyment Outdoors
Summary: Garden lighting fixtures can be a landscape transformer by extending enjoyment outdoors, creating new looks, highlighting decor elements, light up pathways and walkways and provide a level of safety in the garden.
Question: We want to install garden lighting to light up the landscape, I only remember landscape lights on expensive homes growing up, they seem to be gaining in popularity. Where can I get solar garden lights? Gina, Cincinnati, OH
Answer: Garden lighting continues to grow in popularity as home values and home improvement has come an ever-increasing trend towards increasing property vales and outdoor living moves out the back door of the home.
The deck, patio, terrace and the flower garden have come to be more than merely pleasant adjuncts to the indoor living quarters and landscape lighting has played a big part in the growth.
Garden lighting is now considered an integral part of the home. We play games, relax, read, dine, and entertain outdoors as well as indoors.
Many homes built in recent years have located the living and dining areas to the rear or side of the house where they can adjoin the patio or terrace, and can look out over the garden areas.
Gardening has become an increasingly popular do-it-yourself activity in which every member of the family participates. as a result, all take an equal pride in the appearance of the home grounds, and everyone thrills to the sight of a flower bed or shrub in full bloom, even at night when landscape lights transform and show off the garden and lighted pathways.
Only a few years ago enjoying outdoor living and spending time in the garden was limited by the number of daylight hours available. as long as the sun continued to shine there was light for making true outdoor-indoor living a reality.
But, with the coming of darkness, you were forced to go back indoors, drawing the blinds and shutting out the invisible beauty of your backyard garden.
Today, with garden lighting being so affordable, this is no longer necessary. with the use of easy to install and well-planned garden and patio landscape lighting you can now enjoy the beauty of your garden and the pleasures of outdoor living through the cool, dark hours of evening.
Even the humblest garden can be transformed into an enchantingly beautiful wonderland which is even more attractive at night than it is by day. a rock or fountain, and the sound of water together with a bright spot-light create garden magic by the simple installation of low voltage landscape lights.
Garden landscape lighting is, of course, not new. but until recently it was a luxury only the very wealthy could afford.
Fixtures and equipment were expensive and difficult to locate. Each installation had to be custom made and designed, and required the services of an expert in the field. And it was limited almost entirely to large, formally landscaped estates.
Solar landscape lighting fixtures and low-voltage (Malibu lighting) are now affordable for about every budget.
In recent years, however, the picture has changed entirely. We now have moisture-proof wire and connectors, easy-to-install underground flexible cable, and weatherproof, handsome-looking fixtures, modern LED technology which need only to be plugged in to a low-voltage 12-volt transformer complete the installation – or cut the wire and go with solar powered garden low voltage lighting.
These are readily available at local garden centers and home improvement stores in every community, and are inexpensive enough to allow any homeowner to afford the luxury of an illuminated nighttime garden or patio. they are equally effective when used to light up one modest flower bed, or when used to light up the most pretentious of landscaped gardens.
Properly planned and installed, your outdoor lighting will also increase the living space in your home by unifying it with your surrounding yard and grounds.
You will be increasing the hours of outdoor recreation for the whole family, and will be able to perform many garden chores during the cool evening hours when more leisure time is available. You will extend the hours of appreciation of your garden by lighting it to provide a beautiful view from indoors at night as well as from the outdoors.
You will extend the hospitality of your home to permit gracious outdoor entertaining after dark. You will provide for safe and sure seeing around the outdoor terrace, patio, walks, and pathways. And, as a bonus feature, you will also provide a level of safety for visitors who come by at night.
