All About Outdoor Landscape Lighting - Lane's Landscaping Supply

Outdoor landscape lighting from Lane’s Landscaping Supplies can enhance your property in a variety of ways:

Allows you to spend more time enjoying your backyard
Provides an extra sense of safety and security
Boosts the value of your home (should you ever choose to sell)

If you’ve been thinking about installing landscape lights, here are some helpful basics to get you started.

Making a plan

As a homeowner, there are three things to consider when planning your landscape lighting project.

Areas which must have lighting: Usually, this is where safety comes into play, as you probably want to create a nice, illuminated path along an interlocking paver walkway and leading up a set of natural steps.

Areas which you’d like to light up: If you have a decorative feature like a rock garden or special flower bed you want to show off at night, you’ll want to include that in your plans.

Lighting voltage: Your landscape contractor will recommend the best lighting levels for your project. As a rule of thumb, most lights are low voltage at 12V to 15V.

Take a night walk around your home and neighbourhood

Looking for some inspiration for your landscape lighting project?

You’ll find plenty in your immediate neighbourhood.

When the sun goes down, go for a stroll (or a drive even) around your neighbourhood. Check out the outdoor landscaping designs which have a lighting set up you like.

Ask yourself:

What elements have they lit up?
What landscape lighting products did they use?
Where did they situate the lights?

After your nighttime tour around the neighbourhood, get a flashlight and walk around your home.

That’ll give you a better understanding of what things will look like when a light is shining on them.

And don’t be afraid to play with the positioning of your flashlight.

The most obvious direction of light is straight-on. But get creative and see how things look like when the light is shining upward, downward or even off-centre.

Landscape lights — *A variety of landscape lights*

Types of lights

At Lane’s Landscaping Supplies, you’ll find the following landscape lighting options:

Uplights: They’re placed in the ground and shine their lights upwards. Perfect for highlighting tall structure like trees, waterfalls or even retaining walls.

Accent lights: A very precise, accurate light. Can be placed in the ground to shine upward or above an item to shine downward.

Silhouette lights: Creates a bright, white band of crisp, clean light. Ideal if you have a uniquely shaped object (like a statue) that’s against a bright background.

Directional lights: Powerful and adjustable lights. A smart choice when you want to illuminate a very large landscape feature.

Path lights: A series of lights designed to light up a path. Can be used for walkways, driveways and stairs or even to highlight the edge of a pool deck made from interlocking patio stones.

Additionally, you’ll also find a large selection of security and safety lights for your outdoor landscaping here at Lane’s.

When choosing a lighting contractor, make sure you ask the following questions

You know the lighting you want.

You know where you want to place it.

Now it’s time to hire a professional contractor to install it for you.

Before you decide on a contractor, make sure to get answers for the following questions.

Question 1: Will you use a multi-tap transformer?

Why you should ask: Most landscape lighting fixtures used LED bulbs. Multi-trap transformers ensure best performance because they:

Minimize voltage drop-offs (when some bulbs burn brighter than others)
Boost the overall lifespan of your light system
Are made to handle long wire installation projects

Question 2: Do you use UL listed products?

Why you should ask: Non-UL products haven’t been tested for safety. There’s no way to know how they’ll perform in conditions like:

Heavy rain
Excessive cold and snow
Extreme heat

Question 3: How will the wires be buried?

Why you should ask: You won’t want your aggregates, topsoil or mulch areas to be dug up; nor do you want exposed wires when it’s done. Your contractor should account for things like:

Grass cutting
Watering (either with a hose or irrigation system)
Every day use from kids of pets

Want to brighten your property? Come to Lane’s

During the day, your landscape design looks fantastic.

There’s no reason it shouldn’t look the same at night.

Whether you want advice on installation, design or products, the team at Lane’s Landscaping Supplies has all the answers you need.