Need help with fixture selection to highlight massive rock wall next to driveway.

There is some room between wall and concrete that I will fill with rocks. I also need lights a long driveway. I can uplight from the the base of the wall or maybe a flood light from across the driveway. I can mount a light on the lower column across the driveway.

 

Looks like a fun project, Laura. You don't say how much of the rocks or the road you want to illuminate but I can make some general recommendations. The way I see it, there's a couple of different approaches. First, you could do some combination of path lights down near the base of the rock wall (to highlight the base of the wall) and distribute spotlights and/or floodlights among the rocks to highlight different areas. An alternative approach is to floodlight the wall more broadly (either from directly below or from fixtures mounted on the opposite side of the road) as in the stacked retaining wall photo. I also think that if you illuminate the rocks and the trees above fairly brightly, there's a good chance you'll find that the light that bounces off of those surfaces serve as sufficient lighting for the road surface itself. I'm happy to offer more suggestions, if you can offer more details about what you want to accomplish. HTH

 

I like the look of various placed little lights in the rock wall. Would I use puck lights for that? Not sure how I would hide the wires. Get 25' wire attached and try to stuff the wire in the crevices? I do want it to be subtle lighting as I don't want it disturbing the wildlife too much. I think wall washing with a flood/spot light from across the driveway would be too bright for someone walking in the driveway. The driveway is 65 feet long. Would you use the conehead path lights along the driveway on the house side or the top dog scotty mini path lights? I want to be sure that people can see the rock wall while backing out of the driveway at night. Not sure what to use on the rock side to subtlety light up the edge of the driveway. I was considering the twinnovator path/area lights to possibly light the driveway with one light pointing down and the other light pointing up at the wall. I am trying to be keep the number of lights to a minimum. I haven't figured out wiring and hub placement yet. I will have 2 transformers - one on each side of the garage with one or both on the interior. I really don't want the transformer visible at the main entry.

I have a front path that leads to stone steps that also need lighting and a concrete pad next to the garage and a path to steps that need lighting. I can attach some fixtures to the garage.

Is the warm color of the Volt bulbs preferred for this kind of lighting or can I use a cooler temperature bulb? My current house lights are a cool white.

I have attached some more photos.

 

Hi, Laura. Thanks very much for the additional photos. I also appreciate you mentioning that you want to be careful to be respectful of the night sky by not installing more lights than you need. That was very helpful, as I now have a better sense of what you're trying to accomplish overall. So you have a problem that I think most people who write in for suggestions wish they had: There's probably a way to use every fixture type imaginable to accomplish what you want to do. It also looks like you have a great infrastructure in place to install your lighting in any number of ways. I notice that you have nice expansion gaps that could enable you to hide wires (so you can easily install lights on either side of your driveway without too much trouble. It also seems you have some new construction going on (which is an ideal time to lay down conduit for wires you can use to install lights in different areas of your property now or in the future).

In your second post you asked about the possibility of adding path lights (like the twinnovator fixture) to illuminate both your driveway and the rock wall simultaneously. A great idea but I think you should also consider approaches to light the wall and your driveway that keep your fixtures and/or light sources from view as much as possible. For instance, people often ask me about core drilling to install well lights or puck lights like those shown in the photos attached. But my philosophy is, whenever it's possible to easily hide or obscure light fixtures, take the path of least resistance. I just think it looks way more impressive and professional when people can see the effect of lighting while having to somewhat guess how it's being achieved. But that's just me. If you like or don't care that fixtures are visible, then opt for what you like. In your first post, you mentioned filling in the gap between your wall and your driveway. From what I can see, that gap would probably be an ideal space to install well lights (which are essentially full size versions of the puck lights in the photos). What I like about this approach is that by illuminating the rocks from that gap (compact spotlights or flood lights could work there as well), the fixtures are hidden and better protected from damage. In your case, you could illuminate the rock wall from that gap and in a sense, allow the rock wall itself to become the light source. Keep in mind that a certain amount of light will bounce off of the rocks and illuminate the driveway anyway. And when it rains, the illuminated rock wall will be reflected on driveway surface. In short, you might very well find that--depending on the brightness level you settle on--simply lighting the walls from below provides all the light you need to illuminate the driveway.

Since you mentioned that the lighting on hour house is on the cooler side, I did want to mention another lighting approach worth considering. That's moonlighting (see other attached photos). The first example is a very good approximation how my own modestly sized driveway is illuminated. Moonlighting is my favorite lighting technique and when done well, it can truly look ethereal. This would involve installing lights fairly high up (30 or 40 feet) in some of the trees bordering your driveway. So, imagine the shadowed area I have circled that's centered on your driveway in the photo attached at night time. Moonlighting (using downlights) would also keep your fixtures hidden and you'd have full control of the light output. Moonlighting is usually creating using very cool color temps (usually upwards of 4000K) to mimic the light color produced by the moon. Notice, for example, how much cooler the light color temperature is in the first example compared to that in the second example. Another great aspect of moonlighting is that it can be achieved in a way that's night sky friendly. You could even illuminate at least part of your driveway by installing cooler color temperature down lighting on your garage (which you mentioned in your prior post).

You asked about color temperature choice. To a large extent, that's really a personal preference. In my case, I only have the cooler colored lighting focused on my driveway. IMO, it can be somewhat jarring to see warm landscape lighting (like 2700K or warmer) very close to any lighting over 3000K. But if you wanted to be a stickler for rules, generally people opt for 2700K on their facade and other architectural features and use 3000K (which is closer to daylight color temperature, ironically enough) to illuminate plant material. So hopefully I have given you some useful feedback and I haven't overwhelmed you.

 

Thank you very much! I do love the moonlighting idea. Love your photos. The trees along the driveway and at the the top of the rock wall are arborvitae with multiple trunks that bend very easily with snow load. It doesn't snow often here but we get a good storm 1-2x per winter. I will see if there are any good mounting points for a light. The medium magnolia in front of the house gets pruned quite frequently too. I also thought well lights would be good next to the rock wall. i just have to be on top of removing all the plant debris that will accumulate on them. Those darn arborvitae sure are messy. There is one heavy gage LV wire already run underneath the concrete from the garage to the short basalt column and then goes back down and up on the other side of the taller column with the post light.

I went with cool white for the coach lights on the house because I bought an integrated LED outdoor light that is 6000K. It looked terrible with the warm light of the other lights so I switched to 6000K on all the fixtures. I don't mind the 6000K now. I can still buy the 3000K version of the light.

 

Glad to help. Right now our front yard well lights keep getting covered with leaves but the rest of the year, they require very little maintenance. Moonlighting is more impressive with trees that have a more open branch structure. I’ve never seen it attempted with conifers but there some evergreens (like Magnolias) that can work well, if the fixtures are placed strategically enough. Again, glad to know my feedback was helpful..