Hi, I was hoping some of you could offer advice regarding lighting the landscape in my front yard. We had started this project last weekend with grazing the house walls, dormers, and front pathway lighting, including up-lighting the 3-trunk stump in the front, and tree all the way to the right of the house near the drive. We hadn’t planned on any more lighting at this time (later this year or next), but we have realized that there is little lighting on the actual landscaping that is viewable from the front, and none to the left of the house, which seems to make the work incomplete. So the goal is to get something on the landscaping in these sections and/or bushes along the left side of the house to correct these areas. Perhaps something simple (aka less expensive) for now that can be expanded upon later (we zone everything and use hubs). We have discussed simply outlining the front of these sections with pathway lights, but as some of the plants in the right section are tall and all of them die in the late fall winter; we are not sure how this will look then (also, the pathway lighting now hidden by plants will be visible then and may not line-up right with the new line of lights). Down-lighting could work as I have the trees; I can get about 20ft up myself but any higher and I don’t know. However, we are not really sure what this will look like. Lighting just the bushes along the left of the house may be a good start, but we are not sure how to do this without putting lights in the actual yard which we don’t want to do. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Hi, Jason. Moonlighting/downlighting was actually the first idea that came to mind when I saw your photos. In fact, those shadows created by sunlight are a very good indicator of the effect moonlighting will create in your own yard. Only you’ll get to choose how pronounced or subtle the effect will be. If it’s in your budget to hire someone to mount the lights a good 30 feet or more up into the trees, I think you’ll find it’s so worth the effort. Please see the example below. The higher you go, the more complex the shadows will be. The brighter you go, the more pronounced the shadows will be. Downlighting gives the best bang for the buck in terms of coverage, IMO, bathing huge sections of your yard in soft lighting using only a few fixtures. Hope this helps. https://vincentlandscapesinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/DSCF6653.jpg
