Garden Lighting - Add lighting to your garden

Add another dimension to your garden with some garden lighting.

It is easy to increase your enjoyment of your garden by adding some easy to install Garden lighting.

Generally speaking the four main types of lighting in a garden are -

Feature lighting - Used to create additional interest by lighting key features, such as specimen plants, statues, and trees. With this type of lighting it's easy to add depth and interest to a garden at night.

Ambience lighting - most people create this type of lighting in their garden using low voltage lights which can be purchased in kit form. Its amazing how a garden can be transformed after dusk by the addition of a few well chosen lights.

Safety lighting - on steps pathways and patio edges this type of lighting can be enhance the garden whilst creating a safer garden at night for the owners and visitors.

Security lighting - the most popular type of lighting. Using timers and sensors this lighting is a valuable addition to home security.

Flood lighting - this is generally used to display houses and large trees, normally using heavy duty lighting to achieve the desired effects.

Notes on garden lighting. There are two main types for lighting. Stand alone and wired lighting. The stand alone is normally solar powered and is ideal for a quick solution to create ambience lighting. However the solar power supply can have some drawbacks when trying to position the light in densely planted borders. Wired lights are supplied as 240 volt or 6 to 12 volts with mini transformers. Normally we would recommend option for the lower voltage for safety and cost reasons in every type of lighting except security lighting that is best with 240 volt because of the requirement for lighting strength.

• Lighting position - The key in design is to adopt a changeable solution. In practical terms this involves laying enough cable so that the position of the lights can be moved once the effects can seem and as the gardens plants mature. The GardenAdvice Construction teams always lay cable and irrigation pipes during all our projects to enable us to plan and create lighting and garden irrigation systems at a later stage with the minimal of hassle. Once the garden is created and the cable laid it’s a good idea before installing the lights to experiment with some temporary lights such as oil filled lights or large candles. This can often produce to some new and unexpected effects.
• Installation - Safety is always the key consideration. Firstly always use a circuit breaker or an electrical trip. If you are using 240-volt lighting always use armour cable and consider the uses in the garden such as digging our forking borders i.e. are the cable deep enough. With all types of lighting it is a good idea to lay the cables yourself and to employ the services of a qualified electrician to carry out the joints and connections.