Greetings, I live in Southern California and I'm looking to add some subtle landscape lighting to illuminate the front of my home, as well as create some ambiance lighting for the backyard as well. I'm not looking to go too over the top, but just add a bit of light to both the front and the back of the home to make things a little more cozy feeling. In the front yard, I want to add a few lights to the walk way from the sidewalk up to the front door. I also want to illuminate the palm tree, as that is a major focal point that can be seen both inside and outside. After this point, I'm not sure if it would be better to light up some of the plant material, or the actual front face of the home. There is one light immediately to the right of the door, and another light a few feet to the left of the door. There are no other lights on the front exterior of the home. In the back, there is a patio along the back of the property that I plan to add some overhead market lights to, so I would like to primarily focus on lighting the fruit trees and banana trees. There are also outdoor lights installed on the back of the home, so I shouldn't need any additional lightly there. Given that the fruit trees are not huge, I'm hopeful that 1 smaller uplight per tree will be sufficient here. I'm not sure how many lights would be needed for the banana trees, or if I should use a specific type of light here to get a wider spread of light on these. Any suggestions on design or products to consider would be greatly appreciated.
I always caveat by stating that I'm not a professional... ;-) I think you have great ideas already and I'll just add some thoughts: - Front yard: Path lights leading up the walkway would look great. Maybe 3 on the left side. If you can add one along the walkway to the driveway, that would be good also. Uplighting the palm will look great...at least one, possibly two lights. If "subtle" is your desire, you might try more path lights a few feet in front of the left side of the house...as if you had mulched beds like we do in the midwest, etc. If that's too subtle afterwards, then maybe add spotlights in between the three windows on the left. It might be tricky, as you're trying to avoid having too much light while also avoiding annoying shadows. - Back yard: Your ideas are good there, too... If it was me, I'd uplight the banana tree with 2 lights. Then either uplight the rightmost (largest) fruit tree with one light. If too subtle, you might also uplight the other two fruit trees or put floodlights to illuminate the wall behind the front trees. 3w bulbs might be plenty for the trees ("subtle"). Adding pathlights to the front of the mulched bed (near the sod and behind the 3 chairs) would be a nice touch. Another idea, which would be a nice accent to the back yard, is to add hardscape lights to the block wall...either pop off the top course to install them or install them on the current wall then add another course or capstones. Good luck!
