Landscape lighting provides a simple, affordable way to create an alluring outdoor environment for your home. You can create an inviting entrance and great curb appeal with lighting in the front yard and a soft, cozy atmosphere for entertaining in the backyard. Whatever the style of your home, LED landscape lighting in NJ will enhance the overall beauty and appeal of your home and landscape.
What is LED Lighting?
LED lighting is low voltage lighting that provides an energy-efficient light source. Although it’s a little more expensive than halogen lighting, the extra expense will pay for itself over time. LED bulbs have a much longer life than halogen bulbs. They can last from 30,000 to 50,000 hours and that can mean years of use before replacement bulbs are needed.
LED landscape lighting in NJ is available in a variety of outdoor fixtures to create different effects in your landscape. With a large selection of styles and finishes, it’s easy to find fixtures that complement your home’s architectural features and materials. LED landscape lighting includes:
- Spots and Floods – LED spot lights and flood lights are great for illuminating various architectural features and landscape elements such as trees, plants and flowers, garden areas, retaining walls, exterior walls and various hardscaped surfaces in the landscape.
- Deck and Pathway Lighting – LED deck lighting can be used to illuminate decks and deck posts, steps and railings, patios and low walls and fences. LED pathway fixtures provide illumination and foot safety for driveways, sidewalks, walkways and outdoor pathways.
- Well Lighting – LED in-ground light fixtures and waterproof well lights are almost invisible when they are not lit. They provide a hidden means of up-lighting trees, large shrubs and architectural elements like walls, columns and special outdoor features. In-ground fixtures can also serve as pathway lighting in areas where other types of fixtures don’t work.
- Pool, Fountain and Pond Lighting – Underwater LED lights are fully submersible in water. They’re great for illuminating backyard fountains, waterfalls and koi ponds, as well as spas and swimming pools. They are designed to provide clear, white light and withstand permanent installation underwater.
- Lighting Strips – Flexible LED lighting strips provide an easy way to accent outdoor features like pool decking, railings, walkways and pathways, arbors and outdoor kitchens. Waterproof LED flexible strips and modules work well on all curved hardscaped surfaces.
LED landscape lighting in NJ is energy-efficient, cost-efficient and easy to install in your landscape. Low-voltage landscape lighting just requires a transformer and an outdoor receptacle. The transformer converts the voltage from the electrical line (120 volts) to a usable 12 volts to operate the lights. To protect the wiring from water damage, it’s best to bury it at a depth of at least 18 inches or encase it in waterproof conduit.
10 Great LED Landscape Lighting Ideas
With creative planning and professional help from a landscaping company like Borst, you can create a magical landscape with LED landscape lighting in NJ. By using proper placement of fixtures and lighting techniques, you can give your Bergen County home and landscape unique appeal and ambiance at night. Take a look at 10 easy LED landscaping ideas.
1. Add Depth to Your Landscape
Balance is important when you’re lighting your home’s exterior. Lighting only the house can look unnatural and create an uninviting entrance, especially if you have a large front yard. It’s important to balance the lighting on your home’s exterior such as porch lights, wall washers and spot lights with interesting and varied types of landscape lighting. By up-lighting trees and shrubs, you will add depth and soft ambiance that creates a warm welcome for guests.
2. Showcase Your Entrance
To create an inviting entrance and a bit of dramatic ambiance for your front door, you need more than just an overhead or wall-mounted porch light. By using soft up-lighting and down-lighting around the entrance, you can add stunning appeal to your home at night. Soft highlights will add depth to your front entrance and lead your eye right to the front door. If your front porch has columns or pillars, you can back light them to create softness and emphasize shapes.
3. Create Shadows
Shadows create softness and visual interest that adds contrast to clear, white LED lighting. If your house has interesting architectural materials like limestone, flagstone, brick or wood, adding spotlights close to the foundation will catch the edges of the materials and create an intricate shadow pattern against the house. This is a great way to highlight beautiful architectural materials and features with soft light.
4. Illuminate Pathways
It’s essential to illuminate walkways and pathways in your landscape for safe foot paths. Whether you opt for simple, inexpensive LED landscape lighting in NJ or pricier fixtures with specialty finishes, placement is critical. When positioning pathway lights, think of them as gentle hints for where to go next, not tools to outline the shape of the walkway or pathway. Even with a long walkway, using fewer fixtures is better than using too many.
5. Mix Fixture Styles
Using different styles of pathway lights in your landscape will help you avoid the “good little soldier” look. When installing pathway lights, most homeowners simply buy the required number of identical fixtures. This creates monotony and lack of visual interest, often creating the look of an airport runway. By choosing several different style fixtures with coordinated design elements and finishes, your landscape pathways will be much more appealing.
6. Add Color and Texture
When selecting pathway lights, look for fixtures that will add color and texture to your landscape. Pathway lights are visual aids in a dark space, but they can also add interesting color and texture to walkways and pathways, garden areas, patio perimeters and landscaping along retaining walls and fences. Choose fixtures that complement the architectural style and materials of your home and enhance the shapes and colors in your landscape.
7. Accent Water Features
If you have an outdoor fountain, waterfall, pond, spa or swimming pool, use accent lighting to draw attention to these unique features. Water features in a landscape create relaxing atmosphere and provide soothing water sounds. They create interesting focal points in the landscape where people like to gather for conversations and entertaining. Use spotlights or floodlights to accent outdoor water features and create interesting gathering areas for guests.
8. Spotlight Outdoor Features
If you have an outdoor fireplace, outdoor kitchen, pavilion or pool house, spotlight features with landscape lighting to create dramatic appeal. You can use spotlights, floodlights or flexible LED lighting strips, depending on the amount of light you prefer. For vertical surfaces spots, floods and wall washers work well. For features with curved or flowing lines, flexible lighting strips can accentuate curves and softness.
9. Create Moonlighting
To create moonlighting effects, place fixtures high in the trees and aim them downward. The leaves and branches of the trees will cast interesting shadows on landscape areas, patio areas, and pathways below. To create multiple shadows and textures, place several lighting fixtures high up in the tree branches and cross the light downward. For the most natural appeal, fixtures should be placed 30 to 40 feet up in the trees and hidden from view.
10. Mix Warm and Cool Lighting
For the most natural moonlit look, moonlighting uses cool lighting that provides a blue cast. It’s very effective, but creates a rather cold, sterile feeling. In outdoor areas where you entertain and gather with family and friends, it’s important to mix warm lighting with a yellow cast to moonlighting. You can use a variety of LED landscape lighting in NJ combined with candlelight to create a comfortable, inviting outdoor atmosphere.
If you’re looking for landscape lighting ideas for your Bergen County home, contact the professionals at Borst Landscape & Design about landscape lighting. Our team of landscape lighting experts can help you create a landscape lighting plan that will showcase the beauty of your home and your landscape.