If you ride through any neighborhood during the late evening, the home that will stand out the most is the one that is adorned with properly designed outdoor landscape lighting. People spend untold amounts of money ensuring that the landscaping of their property is just perfect. Then when darkness falls no one sees it. If you are installing landscape materials on a new property or you are updating your present landscaping be sure to include lighting in your overall landscape plan.

When most people think of lighting the outside of their homes, they usually just consider safety and security. Both of these considerations are definitely necessary and must be addressed. However, they can both be incorporated into a landscape lighting plan that also adds to the aesthetic beauty of your property. The lighting of steps, paths and walkways will make the grounds of your property safer to wander on by lighting some of these common trip hazards. This outdoor lighting will also increase the security of your property by eliminating dark areas that could conceal intruders.

Now that you have considered and accounted for the safety and security of your property, you can work on developing an outdoor lighting plan that will highlight those special features in your architectural and landscape designs. In order to help you see some of the possibilities for lighting the outside of your home, drive around the more upscale neighborhoods in your area one evening and take notice of some the ways people have incorporated lighting into their landscape plan. Look at the way the lighting is directed at the different elements they are attempting to feature.

Think of how you may utilize the different types of general lighting fixtures such as floodlights, spotlights and path lights. The floods and spots can be directed in several different ways in order to obtain unique effects and personalize your outdoor landscape lighting design. For example, you may use a spotlight and aim the light directly at a specimen tree you would like to highlight. Or to change the effect, use the spotlight at the base of the tree and aim it up through the branches. This is known as up lighting. Some of the other effects are known as down lighting, cross lighting and spotlighting which is what you did when you aimed the spotlight at the specimen tree. These different effects can also be done utilizing floodlight fixtures as well.

As you can see, the possibilities when using outdoor lighting are only limited by your imagination. Spend some time in your yard at night experimenting with spotlights and floodlights and then sit down and develop a plan that will enhance the night time beauty of your property. Better yet, consider hiring a professional to develop the plan and oversee the installation of your final design. Whichever way you choose to go, a well designed and implemented outdoor landscape lighting plan will not only make your property safer and more secure, but will increase your homes property value as well.