Lighting in landscape design

A country house, in addition to being a place of permanent or seasonal living, still provides an excellent opportunity for self-actualization. And the easiest way to do this is by devoting yourself to ennobling the surrounding landscape.

The work will consist not only in the planting of plants and the breakdown of flower beds, but also giving the garden a special charm. If the day for this atmosphere will meet the flowers and decorative elements, then in the evening it will become a responsibility of landscape lighting. This is a fairly large area of ​​work in the design of the infield. The construction of lighting has its own subtleties and requires a serious approach to the implementation of ideas.

How to create lighting in landscape design

Quality lighting of the garden can only provide a multi-level system of correctly grouped correctly directed lighting elements. They will have to simultaneously perform both the main functional task of covering the territory and decorate its space with its glow.

The arrangement of lighting elements, as a rule, is at the final stage of development of landscape design. Representing landscape lighting fixtures should focus on the most successful types of windows, to designate private areas and represent the ceremonial. Then they are determined with the adequacy of the points of placement of illuminating structures and preliminarily estimate how powerful the lamps should be in them. This will make it possible to determine more:

• with the number and type of lighting fixtures for landscape lighting that will need to be purchased;
• color solution of their plafonds;
• direction of the flow of light.

Details of the landscape that need illumination

Obligatory highlighting is subject to all obstacles on the site, whether natural or artificially created. First of all, the illumination of reservoirs in landscape design is being arranged. This requires a special approach. If you make a perimetric illumination, then even the puddle will seem an inordinately deep, almost dark whirlpool. But the location of light sources at the bottom or directly on the surface of a water object will produce the opposite effect and instead of a black frightening abyss a mysterious pond will appear on the site, for example.

It is good to hide the lamps that create decorative landscape lighting in the crowns of plants. Bushes and trees acquire volumes, and the site is replenished with a luminous object of an ornate shape.

Alpine hill – a great place to turn fantasy. Lighting of such an element in landscape design can be performed as a single torch-like lantern mounted on the top, and several flat luminaires laid in the base. Any decision, of course, will enrich the composition and advantageously present the most successful elements of it.

You can resort to a non-standard option for landscape lighting and let the alpine slide glow with serpentine, garland. If there is no need to accentuate any details of the object, the lamp should be removed from it. In this case, such representatives of landscape lighting as lamps of directional light will be good. The rock garden surrounded by them will look natural.

Flowerbeds and flower beds can be lighted in a non-standard way, using as an old wide glass vase of glass. Inside the tank, they put light bulbs working on solar energy. The vase is placed in the center of the flower bed, turning it upside down and slightly prikopav. The soft light of solar lamps will be enough to emphasize the beauty of flowering plants.

But the tracks are highlighted not only with a decorative purpose. Here, the security aspect is also relevant, so it will be necessary to conduct an adequate selection of the fixture designs. They must match the architectural solution of the alleys.

Types of landscape lighting

Before you start to understand the variety of ways to organize lighting in landscape design, it should be noted that the highlight can be represented as:

• general;
• accent.

Correctly balancing flooding the general light and accent lighting, you can achieve high artistic design of the territory.

Creating a design of lighting design, you need to highlight the main objects and background elements of the overall picture, designate the focal points, and then form a smooth transition between all this.

Methods of landscape lighting

To make homestead territory in the evening hours no less attractive than during the day, you need to intelligently illuminate it. In fact, the development of the lighting project is a combination of certain techniques. This is a combination of different levels of landscape lighting schemes and luminaires.

So, on the site should be:

1. General lighting.

2. Illumination of the flora.

3. Architectural lighting.

4. Illumination of reservoirs.

General lighting

Its task is to emphasize the layout of the territory, to show the location of the main facilities, access roads, sites, arbors, buildings, etc. Landscape lighting is provided here by lamps like:

• lanterns;
• searchlights;
• decorative supports;
• hanging lamps;
• bollards.

Highlighting flora

In any landscape there are green plantations, which can be separated by a directional stream of light. This is a great way to turn flowerbeds, rockeries, rock gardens, trees and bushes into art objects. With skilful landscape lighting, they will play with new colors. What height, power, type of light supply to choose lamps will depend on the size and shape of the plant, the texture of their trunks, the light absorbing capacity of the leaves and their seasonal variability.

Architectural lighting

“When designing architectural lighting in landscape design, it is necessary to take into account the shape, proportions and construction of the house, the peculiarities of the transition of some architectural forms to others, the color solution of the facade decoration”

This way of lighting in landscape design is designed to emphasize the beauty of the architecture of buildings. The emphasis is on individual fragments of houses, the texture of the walls, the originality of the roofs. Preference is given to elegant with a good design, lighting structures that are installed on the visors of buildings, their walls or dig into the ground. For greater efficiency, you can try combinations of highlights.

The illumination of the building allows the house to remain attractive even in the evening hours. When designing architectural lighting in landscape design, it is necessary to take into account the shape, proportions and construction of the house, the features of the transition of some architectural forms to others, the color solution of the facade decoration. This will help determine the points of installation of luminaires and the angle of their supply of light fluxes. The task is difficult, so it makes sense to resort to the services of professionals. They have knowledge of the latest technologies of landscape lighting and practical skills that will allow them to realize any fantasies concerning the arrangement of the night garden.

The artistic illumination of objects, in addition to the professional approach, also requires specific lighting equipment. In the landscape lighting, modern lamps will allow to reproduce on the walls of buildings whole light pictures, create dynamic illumination and original tracking lighting. Here you need to play with the intensity and color spectrum of outgoing rays, as well as the direction of their filing.

Designers use three basic schemes of lighting houses.

Fill-in illumination

Its task is to illuminate the whole building. Reception is relevant for lighting large-scale buildings, as a rule, non-residential type. The object is snatched from the dark by powerful lights of landscape lighting: spotlights installed on the ground or nearby buildings, and street lights. In their rays, the shape of the object and all the original details of its decoration are clearly visible. The presence of flood lighting is necessary in the landscape design of church areas, palaces of cultures, museums, as well as in places where life at night boils.

Local lighting

Its rays illuminate only the most expressive parts of the facade decoration and emphasize the features of the structure of the building. This is a great way to highlight balconies, balustrades, cornices, friezes. To ensure the effect, groups of projectors giving directional light is used. They are installed directly on the facade of the illuminated object.

Hidden Illumination

Relatively new trend in the matter of landscape lighting. The task of the fixtures is not to illuminate the walls, but to create a unique light pattern on them. In this case it will be possible not only to follow the architectural reliefs of the structure, but also to create arbitrary decorative compositions.

Illumination of reservoirs

Illuminated water bodies will certainly become an accent zone of any territory. With the right approach to the choice for this type of landscape lighting fixtures, streams, waterfalls, ponds, lakes, pools and fountains will look like real works of art.

Nuances of landscape lighting of plants

To emphasize the unusual forms of plants and the richness of the color of their foliage, a variety of light sources are used. Their design is selected in accordance with the tasks assigned and with an eye for the current season. Despite some disadvantages, it is recommended to use incandescent lamps, by today’s standards, in the illumination of vegetation. Suitable and searchlight illumination by mercury light carriers. They will give the leaves a pleasant turquoise hue.

To create interesting color effects will help the property of lamps to give a certain, specific only to them the color spectrum of light. Try lighting flower beds in landscape design with fluorescent lamps, trees – mercury, bushes – with Ilyich’s lamps, and see what a magnificent sight will appear before your eyes. To illuminate bushes and trees it is possible, having established fixtures on the ground, somewhere on a trunk or under the crown. The second and third option is relevant for single landings. The internal glow emphasizes the beauty of the shape of the crown and makes the object clearly visible against the backdrop of a dark landing or sky. The backlighting from below and behind makes the contours of the plant clearly visible.

Incandescent lamps are recommended for use in landscape lighting for spotlights, not only in the spring-summer season. They remain relevant in the autumn, when the foliage changes color, becoming purple-yellow. But in winter the snow-covered branches will look better in the rays of colored light streams. They will create a festive mood in the garden. Naked branches will look good, highlighted by landscape lighting, pouring from the background, that is, because of them. The beam of light itself becomes a kind of background, and bare trees stand out on it with subtle dark silhouettes. A special approach is recommended for lighting in the landscape design of birches. Their whitish trunks are magnificent in the rays established on the ground of searchlights.

In the conditions of park decor it is important to make the right choice of objects to be illuminated. Here you need to put on display architectural dominants, entrance groups, sites, the most attractive plantings and leave all the ordinary in the shade. Here the first place in the coverage of landscape design will play a game of contrasts, since it is she who is responsible for the volume of visual perception of the composition being represented. A certain contribution to this will be made by light strips and arches and amusements available in the design, neon inscriptions.

To distinguish three-dimensional structures, decorative sculptural compositions, obelisks and monuments in landscape illumination is more correct than sources of directional light. Usually, those standing on low pedestals, hidden in concrete niches or buried in searchlights, are used. The same way can accentuate the tall trees growing in the surroundings of a dense shrub. The latter will disguise the source of light emission from the eyes of observers. Special requirements are imposed in the landscape lighting of interior lighting used in the electrification of premises. They will have a double load. On the one hand, they should cover the interiors in a qualitative way, on the other hand, they should form the external appearance of the perception of the architectural object.

To give greater effect to beautiful buildings, sliding light beams can be used.

In modern parks, luminous objects often become glass pavilions. These are rather large for landscape lighting fixtures, are perceived as effectively as possible, if they are located near water bodies. The reflective ability of the water surface stimulates the play of colors, adds brightness and luster to them in water reflections.

A very interesting solution to the problems of lighting in the landscape design of the park was found in Munich. There, on a square of 70 hectares, a cable covering was used, mounted from steel cables and transparent film, which was stretched over the main structures. The grandeur of the luminous coating did not make his perception difficult. On the contrary, it favorably emphasized the spatial solution of the landscape of the park zone as a whole and determined its architectural features.

To obtain maximum aesthetic impact from the illumination of plants, it is necessary to understand what to focus on when planning landscape lighting. First of all, the trunk texture, the branching method, the shape of the leaf, the density of crown density, its seasonal color, the growth rate, the type of inflorescences and the color of the petals of flowers are important. All these nuances directly affect the choice of the type of landscape lighting.

In trees with a thick impenetrable crown, lighting is done by remote light sources. In this way, the floodlighting of the tree outside is organized. With a transparent crown, the luminaires can be placed directly on the trunk and direct their light so that it penetrates between the leaves. Lighting of tall trees in landscape design, especially pyramidal forms, occurs in searchlights, in the design of which concentrating optics is provided. They are put no closer than 5 or even 10 meters. In the illumination of palms it is also recommended to use spotlights. Spots will allocate the crown, and the searchlights will get a role in emphasizing the texture of the trunk.

Dense roundly formed crowns, such as the magnolia, can also be illuminated with remote light. If you need to provide a circular illumination, you should take care of the correct angle of light. It should not strike the eye and give a glare effect. Limitations on the angle of lighting targeting in landscape design will not be if the lighting devices can be placed in the screening zone, that is, in bushes or other small plantings. However, this must be done so that bright leaves do not appear on their leaves.

Problems with the arrangement and selection of types of luminaires occur most often in young gardens, as here it is often necessary to correct landscape lighting, that is, to retarget instruments, and sometimes even transfer them. An exit from a situation sometimes can become purchase of lighting designs with height adjustment.

At too high conifers it is sometimes difficult to highlight the entire crown. Experts say that in this case, you can limit its lower illumination. The effect will be no less impressive.

It is equally difficult to organize landscape lighting with lamps spreading the crown of oak. Since it is extremely voluminous, it is necessary to expand the quantity and diversify the quality of the fixtures in its illumination.

A serious problem for lighting in landscape design is the growth of planting. This, incidentally, is the main reason why there is a need for seasonal maintenance. The luminaires are cleaned, reinstalled, retouched. To the system worked as fruitfully as possible, sometimes you even have to remove some plants that interfere with its functioning. You need to know about this in order to lay a cable stock in the initial arrangement. This will greatly simplify the operation of the system in the future and will not become an obstacle to the transfer of lighting devices.

For the same reason, in the growing gardens, it is not recommended to use the luminaires of landscape lighting. Aplays are only suitable for mature planting. Young growth is mainly illuminated by low-voltage devices mounted on adjustable support pins. Their work is easier to correct. The fact that the lighting of trees in landscape design is often made from the bottom is explained by the simplicity of installing projectors, but the upper illumination gives a more natural perception of the plant. It is well recognizable, because it looks the same as the day. With the lower-tier lighting, the game of chiaroscuro generates a slightly different effect. Shadow and light here seem to be reversed.

The top light is a less contrast solution. Since a sufficiently large soil surface is illuminated, there is a greater coherence of objects, which is expressed in improving the emotional perception of the composition. A person can distinguish details, consider the color of foliage. The main obstacle in organizing the top type of lighting in landscape design is the lack of support for installing lighting elements. If there are no suitable buildings, neighboring trees can be involved. Lamps on trunks and crowns will open combinational horizons, which will untie the hands of designers.

Unusual effects give lateral highlighting of particularly specific trees or original group plantings. They become a magnificent spectacle against the background of the darkness of the rest of the green massif.

There are a few more subtleties of landscape lighting of trees. It is more expedient to flush small individuals completely, filling them with uniform light. On the crowns of tall and spreading trees, it is more correct to make a number of picturesque light spots that attract brightness. The best landscape lighting will give lamps with incandescent lamps of high power of 300 or even 500 watts. Mercury lamps should be selected models with a capacity of 250 watts. For every 8-12-meter tree, you need to send at least three spotlights.

Decorative illumination of floral plantings

For lawns and flower beds, the leading type of landscape lighting will be flood light. This will be important not so much power capabilities as the spectral composition of the radiation source. Moreover, these indicators will need to be correlated with the flower bed solution. So, to enhance the color of flower petals, in a landscape lighting use lamps of a similar key. It is known that mercury lamps make brighter blue-blue shades, and sodium – any representatives of the red spectrum.

Lighting devices should be arranged in such a way that a color shade of plants habitual to perception is provided. General lighting of flowerbeds and lawns in landscape design is provided by lamps of a standard type, the so-called “bells”, “fungi” and “umbrellas” with a height of one and a half meters, equipped with incandescent lamps up to 150 W.

Choose in the landscape lighting fixtures

“The lamps used in landscape lighting should be attractive and proportionate to the space”

What is important in this issue? First of all, structural features. For example, small architectural forms require delicate, very soft lighting, which will never give rise to powerful floodlights, relevant in the drawing of tall trees.

A special approach is needed and to the lighting design of the tracks. Here the principle of direct proportional dependence operates. The wider the alley, the more powerful lighting it will need. Failure to comply with recommendations and inadequate selection of lamps will result in the light being supplied by them either dazzling or leaving shaded areas. In both cases, moving along the tracks will be uncomfortable and dangerous. In landscape design garden paths are usually selected with column lamps for the appropriate height situation.

Used in landscape lighting fixtures should be attractive and proportional to the space being designed. Their task is to look harmoniously on the site and in the daytime, becoming for this period small decorative forms for the landscape. For this, the supports of the structures must be a product of lightness and grace, only so they can be painlessly inscribed in the natural landscape.

Conclusion

There are many options for organizing lighting in landscape design. The main criteria for choosing his scheme are the financial possibilities and the vision of the object by the customer. The right decision is the guarantee of the comfort of staying in the garden and park area during the night hours and its 24-hour decorativeness. Entrust landscaping to a specialist and believe me, the result will be worth the effort spent!

Photogallery – landscape lighting

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Author: Mikhail Bond

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