There is one absolutely vital rule in garden lighting, but unfortunately most homeowners violate it when they are laying out their garden   The number one rule in garden lighting is that less light is more.  Less light accentuates the night and your garden lighting features and leaves your yard with a stylish touch.

Unfortunately too many people install so many lights in their yard that it looks like you’re looking at the Las Vegas Strip, not a well-designed garden. 

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Your garden gets bathed in bright light from the sun all day, why do you want to look at it in the same circumstances at night?  To avoid making this mistake, follow these tips for designing your garden lighting. 

The first thing that you want to think about when you’re placing your garden lights is how you are going to light the large features on your landscape.  Some of the most dramatic effects that you can make involve lighting your trees and large shrubs, so make sure to design these first and get the right lighting style that you want for them.  Draw where you are going to place the lights on a sketch of your property.

After this, you have to start planning your outdoor path lighting.  This is important because you will be using these to walk around at night, so these areas need to be well lit to avoid trips and falls.  If the area outside your home is a minefield of unseen objects waiting to be tripped over, all the accent lighting in the world doesn’t do you any good.

Finally, after this is done, you can look for other areas to fill in light.  Be careful not to fill in too much though!  Only fill in dark areas or places with some interesting features, like a flowerbed or the texture of a wall.

Visit the  Garden Lights Guru for more information on landscape lighting.