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Learn how to use night lighting effectively in your landscape while avoiding key mistakes that are too often made. Cipriano Landscape Design- Bergen County, Northern NJ

Have you ever been in a yard where the night lighting was shining in your eyes making it difficult to see where you’re going? Maybe the lights were too intense, or perhaps there wasn’t enough, or too many. There are a couple of mistakes you should avoid making when it comes to a lighting design.

Hotspots are seen often in residential lighting designs and occur when a lighting fixture is placed too close to an object or structure or not angled properly. This causes the light to be real intense when bouncing off of the object or structure. What you should do instead is move the fixtures further away so that light gently grazes the object. This will soften the light and avoid creating hot spots.

Another mistake is not putting in enough lighting. Don’t just light around your patios and walkways leaving the rest of your landscape dark. Adding lighting throughout your landscape adds depth into the yard and expands your experience at nighttime. Highlighting some key components of the landscape like a specimen tree, swimming pool feature or statue, is a great way to add lighting outside of the patio and walkway area.

The last mistake to avoid is installing lighting in the wrong places. You want to make sure your lighting isn’t in a place where it can get damaged. Too often people will install path lighting right up against the edge of the path only to later see it getting kicked by people walking by or in the middle of lawns where they will have to endure weedwackers and lawn mowers.

Night lighting can add much more time and enjoyment to your yard but please make sure it’s done correctly. A poor lighting design and installation can actually discourage you from spending time outside. Make sure you check previous designs done by your contractor if you are unsure.