Landscape Lighting for your Garden Ornamentation

View fullsize

While traveling through south Texas this week, I went to a clients and found a unique addition to the front garden. At first I thought it had to be a joke, but then I realized how it was securely mounted to the trunk. Brings a smile to my face and I thought how lucky I am to have such "cool" clients. 

Now don't get me wrong, I am not thinking of adding a light to enhance the viewing pleasure of the bicycle anytime soon. However, I do think it was the perfect lead-in to illustrate several examples of different types of landscape lighting for enhancing your garden ornaments and statues. 

First, I can't tell you all my secrets and I do have to give credit to the master John Robin Watson for his teaching. He truly was amazing!

Typically, a garden ornament or statue is an afterthought when added to the landscape and that is how the lighting of it is usually done as well. Put a light on a stake in front of it and let it shine!!!! The only time to ever consider doing such a thing is when there's considerable landscape around to conceal the lighting unit and there are no trees on the property. This means do all your feature lighting from the trees. The above statue was illuminated with a low voltage 50W Par36 incandescent on a dimmer. The key to this type of lighting is finding the correct location for the lighting unit and amount to dim for the appropriate affect.  

Below, this garden ornament on a west Texas ranch was illuminated with a medium 3,000 kelvin 24W LED spot with a special lens and dimmer. Again, location of the unit is extremely important to get the proper coverage and lighting intensity.

View fullsize

While working at JWLI

The above feature is when you have to use everything in your arsenal so a 300W Par56 incandescent and 500W Par64 incandescent were used to achieve this result. Both lights are on separate dimmers and you have to determine the type of beam spread to use, for example spot, flood, medium flood, wide flood and narrow flood. Proximity to the feature and the feature characteristics will help you in determining which one to use.

Garden ornaments bring so much to an outdoor environment that it requires proper illumination or that ornamentation will turn into an eye sore in the evening hours. Just google lighting outdoor statue and look at the images. Most features are illuminated from the ground and the lighting creates a hot spot on the lower portion of the feature while the upper portion is either in the dark or shadowed. Also, most of the pictures are taken at dusk when the light intensity isn't showing as great. Little tricks the imitators try to use!

Illuminating garden elements is difficult and there isn't a one type or style of light for every type of feature. If we can help you in illuminating a special garden ornament for your home and garden, please contact us.

Landscape Lighting created specifically for you

Additional Security Lighting on a switch

Over the years, one of my favorite adds to a landscape lighting plan is separate security lighting...(in my presentations, I define security lighting as a brighter downlighting (moonlighting) effect) You can see the dramatic impact it can have on a landscape in these project photos.

This play set and trampoline were located across a creek and quite the distance from the homeowners viewing comfort level. The moonlighting we designed to the area provides a nice ambiance, but the client wanted to be able to pay closer attention to their kids. We added a couple security lights on a separate circuit the homeowner could turn on from the house to see just what the little hooligans were up to. By the way, I have five kids so I truly understand the value of this little trick!;-)

Below, the homeowner had a large family and enjoyed setting up tables and chairs in their wonderful back garden for family gatherings. They enjoy a softly illuminated back garden for their all night security and a security light on a separate switch they could only turn on when entertaining.

Additional Security Lighting for Entertaining

I've designed and installed this type of security lighting for homeowners throughout the country to illuminate motor courts for valet parking, sport courts, outdoor kitchen areas, putting greens, and even helipads. 

If you would like more information on this technique please contact us. E2 Illumination Designs is a design-build-maintatin landscape lighting company based in Dallas/Ft. Worth while continually working throughout the country wherever fine outdoor lighting design is demanded.

My favorite estate in Dallas is still for sale

I was blessed seven years ago with opportunity to work on this amazing Robert A.M. Stern estate. Architectural Digest described it as Stern’s “finest pied-à-terre.” The estate has been host to presidents and numerous entertainers including Don Henley, Michael McDonald, Journey and the Doobie Brothers. I even received several invites!

I was referred to the property manager, Darrell, who was looking for someone to trust working on their landscape lighting system and got lucky enough to get the work. Honestly, taking care of the landscape lighting wasn't a high priority for the owner, so I didn't do a lot of work over the years. At least not what you'd expect...I got so much more. I was never able to convince Darrell or the owner on the majority of work the lighting system required, however the relationship forged with Darrell is something I'll cherish. When things were slow in the beginning, Darrell was always good for a cup of coffee on the grounds and even allowed me to run a tractor at the ranch home the owner was building. Darrell took another job on an estate in Wyoming a couple years ago, but before he left, he loaded my van and gave me a covered trailer full of tools for my company. Still amazes me today when I think of all he did for me.

So Darrell, your baby is on the market for a cool $28,500,000, thanks again for everything and I hope the new owners give me a call to finish what we started.

The Baron Estate

LED Landscape Lighting...Your Questions Answered

Over the last six years, LED lighting has gradually become the hot topic when someone inquired about landscape lighting so I thought I'd share my feelings and experiences regarding the most often asked questions throughout this time.

How much does an LED landscape lighting system cost? Prices have come down dramatically and there is virtually no difference when you compare it to a the typical high-voltage mercury vapor system. 

How long will an LED landscape lamp/unit last? They are typically rated for 50,000 hours, so if they are on all night, every night, they should last roughly ten years. This is a bit misleading though, as they typically carry a three-five year warranty and as the years go by it gradually loses it's lumen output (light intensity). Additionally, our installations have demonstrated roughly 5% failure rate during this warranty period. 

How is the color going to look on my landscape? They've made significant improvement over the years to give the customer a variety of kelvin ratings to choose. Typically, 2,700k (warm lighting) to 5,000k (cool lighting)  is what's found. However, every manufacturer's kelvin is different when it comes to LED, meaning one's 5,000k will look completely different than another. This is due to the different styles and binning of the light source (diode) which can be make things difficult when having to maintain one down the road. 

How much money will I save on my energy bill? Again, if compared to a mercury vapor system, you'll see a roughly 60-75% reduction in your electrical usage. This may sound like a lot, but when you look deeper amounts to roughly $40 monthly on a design with 15 units. Of course, savings will increase along with the total number of units in your design.

My personal set of pros and cons for the customer to weigh.

Pros

• Energy savings
• Warranty
• Less equipment in trees and landscape
• Variety of equipment to choose from
• Increased ability to create different lighting affects
• Cool to the touch when operating

Cons

• Small beam pattern...meaning you need more units to cover an area when downlighting and lighting doesn't fill larger tree canopies when uplighting
• Color is different than what people are used to, but still nice.
• Subtle differences from light to light

LED for your landscape lighting is continually evolving and has its' place in virtually all of our designs today. However, for the majority of our designs, a myriad of circumstances dictate its' use. Contact us if you have questions on whether LED is right for your landscape lighting project.