Landscape lighting can extend the usefulness of your Bergen County outdoor living spaces makeing them useable in the evening and throughout the day.
What is Landscape Lighting?
Landscape lighting is a broad term that refers to walkway lighting, illumination around trees or landscape plants and lights in and around hardscape features like stone retaining walls and fences. Such lighting can be off-set or ornamental.
Landscape Lighting Benefits
There are several distinct advantages to adding landscape lighting to your New Jersey outdoor patios and gardens. Among these are:
- Safety – Well-lit walkways and patios help to prevent falls, trips and other accidents. Outdoor lighting gives you and your guests the confidence to walk around your NJ property after dark and reduces your liability as a homeowner.
- Beauty – One of the prime landscape lighting benefits is that such lighting makes your front and back yards more attractive. There’s just something elegant about a subtly-lit walkway, illuminated trees or a patio area strung with rope lighting.
- Security – A well-lit property is a deterrent to burglars. Landscape lighting can also brighten areas of your yard where someone might try to hide.
- Cost – Most landscape lighting costs only about one-third as much as traditional flood lights.
- Usability – Another landscape lighting benefit is that such lighting makes your patio and other backyard rooms enjoyable even after dark.
- Curb appeal – Yet another landscape lighting benefit is to make your northern New Jersey home more attractive to potential buyers. Many house hunters drive by properties before they consider making an appointment to view the house. Landscape lighting can make your property enticing to those driving by around dusk.
Arguments Against Landscape Lighting
Of course, there are also some things you’d be wise to consider before investing in landscape lighting, such as:
- Electrical access – Not all outdoor spaces are equipped with electrical access. Depending on how your yard is set up, installing outlets may involve replacing landscape stone or concrete. Solar-powered lights offer an alternative to electrically-powered lights, but the light from these lamps may not last as long as you’d like. It depends on the amount of sunshine your yard receives during the day.
- Cost – In addition to the initial cost of purchasing and installing landscape lighting, there is the cost of electricity to operate the lights. New low-wattage lamps make this much more affordable than in the past, but it is still an extra cost to consider. Solar lights are an eco-friendly alternative to electrical lighting, but as mentioned above, such lights can be less dependable than electrical lights.
There are many landscape lighting benefits, and it’s important to speak with a landscape lighting company to see if it is right for you.
