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Do’s and Don’ts for Your Outdoor Landscape

house walkway with beautiful landscape

Have you ever walked in a yard where you don’t know what exactly it is, but something feels off? In that case, you probably have stumbled upon a landscape where your surroundings feel right as well. Like art pieces on a canvas, there are certain fundamentals or set of rules to know first in designing your outdoor landscape. Creativity is highly encouraged, but understanding some of the fundamental do’s and don’ts allows you to channel more creativity once you’ve established the basics.

Let’s Start with the Don’ts

We’ve highlighted some of the most common mistakes for you to prevent committing the same for your outdoor landscape. Understand that these are only suggestions to help you achieve whatever your dream landscape looks like, and you still have complete autonomy over how you go about things. Furthermore, let’s proceed with some of the don’ts for outdoor landscape lighting. 

Don’t place your Path Lights too close to each other.

Path Lights are explicitly made to illuminate certain path areas. By placing them too close to each other, you inhibit its full lighting potential, which is counterproductive to the fixture’s main functionality. Consider a range of 5-15 feet apart from each other depending on what you’re trying to go for.

Don’t overdo your landscape lights.

Landscape Lighting is not a numbers game. What makes it fun and exciting are coming up with unique ways to incorporate your landscape lighting without using too much of them. Not only will it cost you more, but it will also ruin the whole vibe and aesthetic of your outdoor space by those annoying glare of lights coming from your fixtures. You’ll never go wrong with sticking to the essential garden lighting fixtures and finding out different ways to apply them to enhance your landscape.

Don’t Opt-in for high-voltage bulbs.

When it comes to outdoor lighting, you have to look closely at how efficiently you are using your power and energy through the fixtures you use. What you need is not a high-voltage bulb that overheats quite quickly and ramps up your monthly electricity in no time. What you can do instead is try switching over to LEDs. This type of lighting is efficient, sustainable, and ideally used for outdoor landscapes.

Don’t Use Down Lighting for Stairways.

We all know the primary purpose of stairs, but for the landscaping community, these are known to create lighting opportunities and a chance to enhance your landscape with ease. Using the common downlighting strategy for your stairs takes away so many While there’s nothing wrong with buying aesthetically pleasing fixtures, you shouldn’t forget their primary role is producing unique lighting features. A beautifully crafted lamp won’t be as effective as a Directional Bullet Light when it comes to outdoor landscape lighting simply because it provides a lot more options to utilize its lighting features.

Don’t Compromise the Quality of Your Fixtures.

If you’re planning to enhance your outdoor space for temporary purposes only, such as special occasions, maybe opting for affordable lighting options might makecreative options for you. It also compromises the stairs’ functionality by causing a lot of unwanted shadows underneath each stair. Instead, you can try incorporating step deck lights on the side or side by side part of each stair to achieve a way better look and appropriately light up your stairs for safety purposes.

Don’t Focus on the Fixture as Design.

 sense. However, for most people looking to build their dream outdoor spaces and want to maintain them for as long as they can, you shouldn’t compromise the quality of your lighting fixtures to save a few bucks. What you want is to find Garden Lights that are durable enough to withstand outdoor weather conditions, highly efficient, and sustainable. Not only will you have a much better outdoor finish, but it will also save you more from landscape lighting costs in the long run.

Don’t Forget About Maintenance.

Even though you can find low-maintenance outdoor lighting, chances are you’re still going to have to take a look after them from time to time. The main reason for this is that the outdoor environment could be harsh at times, so you can’t simply avoid natural causes to compromise the beautiful outdoor landscape you worked so hard to achieve. Fluctuating temperatures doesn’t only affect your plants, but it could also take a toll on your lighting fixtures. So either you decide to leave it up to landscape professionals to maintain your outdoor spaces, or you prefer to do it yourself. What matters is you take the time to keep them.

Don’t Misalign Your Expectations to the Set Budget.

Indeed there’s nothing wrong with getting inspiration from the extravagant landscape you see on the web. However, you also have to align your expectations to the budget you’re willing to put into your landscape lighting project. Landscape Lighting shouldn’t have to be expensive to enhance your landscape, but it could quickly get overboard to your planned budget if you decide to opt-in for way too costly fixtures. 

Do’s for Landscape Lighting

This part will focus on some of the best tips for your landscape lighting to enhance outdoor space. We’ve gathered these tips from landscaping professionals to help you improve and get you started on your landscaping journey.

Do Utilize Different Angles for Highlighting

Landscape lighting is art at its core, so you’ll have to incorporate your lighting fixtures with creative flair and imagination. Say, for example, you’re trying to highlight a particular feature at your landscape, maybe a plant or an institution, what you can do is highlight using directional bullet lighting and illuminate them in multiple unique angles. This is an excellent way to upscale your lighting strategy by utilizing different angles and ultimately separating your landscape from the rest.

Do Use a Variety of Lighting Brightness

Using different shades of brightness prevents your landscape design from being bland and redundant. A variety of lighting styles and shades adds more depth and texture to your whole space. You do this by incorporating some of the basic garden lighting fixtures onto different areas to create a more put-together outdoor environment. 

Do Think About the Mood of Your Outdoor Landscape

Will you be using your landscape to relax or for casual parties family gatherings? The outdoor lighting design of your landscape would massively impact the mood of your environment. This is why we highly recommend keeping this in mind for those who are just getting started with lighting up their beautiful outdoor spaces and for them to consider what they’re trying to go for.

Do Use LED Garden Lighting

You might be wondering, what is it about LEDs that makes them so suitable for outdoor use? LEDs’ most widely recognized benefits are their energy efficiency, no UV emissions, instant switch, low voltage, and longevity. You’ll find better and broader options with LED Garden Lighting while enjoying their significant advantages for landscape lighting use.

Do Prioritize Safety

While creating an aesthetically pleasing outdoor space is the satisfying part, every homeowner must prioritize safety first for their landscape lighting. Before looking for creative lighting executions, prioritize lighting pathways, stairs, driveways, and other dark areas instead for safety and functionality purposes.

Do’s: Keep it Simple.

Sure enough, you could create a great outdoor space only through garden lighting. However, you can never go wrong with starting from the essential landscape lights and improving from there. Keeping it simple prevents you from using unnecessary fixtures to your landscape, creating an environment that has way too much going on, preventing you from relaxing in your beautiful space.

Do Use Low Voltage Light Bulbs

Achieving your dream landscape won’t matter if you’ll only hesitate to open up your lights when you find out how quickly it ramps up your monthly electrical bills. A quick and easy solution for this is to switch up to low voltage light bulbs slowly. They are more efficient, saving you from over monthly expenses on electricity while also having an increased lifespan.

Do’s: Get Creative

The purpose of understanding specific design rules is not to limit your boundaries but to learn how to break some of them too. You won’t create a uniquely styled outdoor landscape if you always play by the rules. Of course, some rules are fundamentals and non-negotiable, especially when prioritizing safety, but don’t hesitate to tweak some changes in the designing part of landscaping. After all, it would be best if you designed a landscape that you would enjoy and be proud to walk around whenever you’re there.

Wrapping Up. 

As we’ve gone through some of the do’s and don’ts of landscape lighting, we hope that you’ll be able to apply these to your own outdoor space and ultimately help you achieve the landscape of your dreams. If you’re passionate about landscaping design, we highly recommend you to visit us at Best Pro Lighting Blog, as we cover a lot of landscaping tips and tricks so you can learn more about what goes behind the process.