Landscape Lighting

For years, people have been using landscape lighting to improve the appearance of the home while also adding security. Today, the most common options for landscape lighting include high-pressure sodium, metal halide, incandescent, and mercury vapor. One of the benefits of landscaping lighting is that it promotes flowering for long-day plants and delays flowering for short-day plants.

With incandescent landscape lighting, wavelengths are produced that are the closest to natural sunlight. Of all light options, incandescent is the least expensive option but also the most expensive to operate. Even so, incandescent landscape lighting remains the most popular choice. Now, with metal halide, wavelengths in blue, green, and red are created, which makes this an efficient option to operate.

Mercury vapor landscape lighting is designed to emit light in the blue/green range, which means the green color of your plants and flowers is accentuated. For high-pressure sodium, these lights are the most efficient on the market. While you typically see this type of lighting used more for security purposes than landscaping, it does add interesting illumination. Finally, although some people use fluorescent lighting for landscape purposes, it is rare.

One of the most important things you can do for landscape lighting is to start with the right type of light, followed by the right light for the area you want to illuminate. Each type of lighting has advantages and disadvantages so you need to weigh the options according to your goal. Keep in mind that landscape lighting can affect plant growth and tolerate the lighting quite well while some types of plants prefer only real sunlight.

If you are thinking about adding landscaping to your home and you want to enhance the appearance and plant growth with landscape lighting, we suggest you choose the right type of plants to begin with. For instance, plants and trees such as Ginkgo, Bradford Pear, Honey Locust, Pin Oak, and Rosebud do extremely well with lighting. However, some types of plants tend to be sensitive to landscape lighting, which include Norway Maple, Catalpa, and Red-Osier Dogwood.

The great thing about using landscape lighting is that most often, it is very affordable and easy to install. Although some types of lighting can be a little more extensive to install, most take just a few hours. Before making your final decision for landscape lighting, we suggest you take stock of your plants and then determine if you are only looking to illuminate the plants or add a measure of security to your home.