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7 Awesome Outdoor Lighting Ideas for Your Backyard

Assessing Your Yard's Needs

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Darkness needn’t put a damper on backyard activities like swimming and barbecuing. By installing backyard lighting, you can keep the party going long after dusk, boost outdoor ambiance, and protect your property from unseen threats.

The three main types of backyard illumination are safety lighting to deter prowlers and improve navigation, landscape lighting to accentuate garden features, and accent lighting to put the focus on the hardscape. Ultimately, you’d want all three types in your backyard to achieve different lighting levels for different needs—and within each of these categories, there’s a variety of lighting choices. So let us shine a light on the best backyard illumination options, so you’ll know what to put in your outdoor space.

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1. Security Lighting

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Security lighting, generally the brightest backyard lighting, is safety lighting to illuminate large areas and scare off would-be burglars or destructive animals. Powered by standard, 120-Volt current, this lighting is installed high spots such as the eaves or above a garage to cast wide beams of light down onto main walkways or the backyard fence entrance.

Your best bet for security is motion-sensing floodlights that mount to the surface of exterior siding or walls and contain two- or three-bulb housing units that go on only when built-in sensors detect movement in the area. Their intense light exposes prowlers and may fool them into thinking you’re home and on alert even if you’re not.

Our Pick for Security Lights: Available in black or white, Ring's floodlight (available at Amazon ) is weather resistant and can be connected to a Ring doorbell, other Ring lights, and even Amazon Alexa. Its two optical LED lights produce a powerful 2000 lumens to light up your landscape as bright as day, and it can detect motion from up to 70 feet away. 

RELATED: Buyer's Guide: Outdoor Motion Sensor Lights

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2. Path Lighting

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Path lighting is soft to moderately bright safety and landscape lighting designed to help you navigate walkways while attractively highlighting them. Install it on the ground along both sides of main walkways from the back door to your fence door, along stepping stones from the main walkway to a backyard feature like a fountain, and/or around flower beds to emphasize their contours.

Path lighting is often available in low-voltage (12- to 15-V) and solar LED options consisting of a decorative bulb housing unit attached to a short stake you drive into the ground. If you choose low-voltage path lights , you'll need to use a transformer to reduce the 120-volt house current to 12 volts; energy-saving solar versions, meanwhile, require no extra wires. Even if your walkways are shaded, these lights will stay bright for several hours after dusk, thanks to a solar rechargeable battery or remote solar panel you station somewhere else in the yard that gets direct sun.

Our Pick for Path Lights: With a stainless steel finish and cylindrical panes, this elegant 6-pack of solar path lights by Signature Garden (available at Amazon) earns high ratings from Amazon shoppers. The lights' water resistance is another draw, along with their LED bulbs, auto on/off power, and crystalline solar panel. Emitting a warm white light, they are also super easy to install.

RELATED: Buyer's Guide: Solar Path Lights

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3. String Lighting

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String lighting is soft, low-voltage accent lighting used to evoke a warm, intimate ambiance that’s especially desirable for entertaining. Hang string lights wherever the activity is—be it on the eaves of the home to brighten an outdoor kitchen or from the posts of an outdoor pavilion or gazebo to illuminate patio furniture.

Look for waterproof, rechargeable, traditional battery-powered or solar-powered outdoor string lights (which usually come with a remote solar panel), preferably those with long-lasting LED bulbs. Such lights avoid the need for running extension cords across the yard, enable lighting in far corners of the yard without electrical outlets, and ensure that lights stay on safely even if spattered with rain.

Our Pick for String Lights: Hang 48 feet of Brightech Ambience Pro waterproof string lights over your patio table or under a pergola to lounge in the warm white glow of 15 indoor-outdoor bulbs (available at Amazon). Not only are these Edison-style bulbs stylish in a retro way, but they are also energy-efficient! These LEDs will last longer than your average incandescent options and won't cost as much to use over that long lifetime.

RELATED: 7 Ways to Transform String Lights from Holiday to Every Day

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4. Outdoor Wall Lighting

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Outdoor wall lighting is a low-voltage, moderately bright form of safety and accent lighting used chiefly to illuminate and improve navigation in small recessed areas of the yard where shadows lurk. You can mount them on any vertical surface, such as along the interior of your pergola; above stairways; and around sunken seating areas, pools, and other low-lying spots.

Wall sconces with an open-bottomed design (i.e., the bottom of the bulb housing is uncovered) are the best options because they cast the maximum amount of light down onto recessed areas. If you have scarce space on exterior walls, consider semi-flush-mount sconces (i.e., the light is attached to a narrow arm that mounts to a plate on the wall) instead of flush-mount sconces with the whole fixture up against the wall.

Our Pick for Outdoor Sconces: Just as the market of indoor wall sconces is large and varied, so are your options for outdoor wall lighting. You'll see all shapes, sizes, and metal finishes—this Lora outdoor sconce (available at The Home Depot) comes in seven finishes, from a shiny red to oil-rubbed bronze. The shallow fixture focuses light from an incandescent or LED bulb down toward the entertainment happening below, while the clean lines of the design blend easily with any other fixtures you may have in place around your exterior.

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5. Lanterns

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Lanterns offer soft, low-voltage accent lighting for a small expanse of an outdoor wall to play up architectural details or decor. They’re often installed in the vicinity of the back door to highlight a transom window, arch, or ornate wreath atop it. Most lanterns are semi-flush mount, consisting of a glass-and-metal exterior attached to an arm affixed to a plate on the wall. However, battery-powered tabletop lanterns bring that same visual interest to eye level while softly illuminating elements that you might reach for when outside entertaining: bowls of snacks, beverages, board games, and more. Choose lanterns with a translucent as opposed to a clear glass covering to provide diffuse, glare-free nighttime lighting that doesn’t distract from other backyard light fixtures.

Our Pick for Lanterns: While there are plenty of variations on the traditional wall-mounted lantern, with its hard corners and boxy shape, feel free to think out of the box. If your sense of style leans toward farmhouse or coastal, you may gravitate toward the Globe Electric's modern matte black take on caged lantern (available at Amazon). The quality of this affordable fixture and its seeded glass shade constantly impresses Amazon buyers.

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6. Deck Lighting

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Deck lighting is standard-voltage, moderate- to high-intensity lighting designed to help folks get up, down, and across the deck by night, avoiding tripping hazards and visual clutter, and also accentuate nearby garden features.

It’s installed as a series of LED lights recessed into grooves in the surface, so that you can safely walk over them, never even feeling them underfoot. Deck lights also belong around the perimeter of the deck surface, in between the individual steps of stairs, and/or along deck stair railings.

Our Pick for Deck Lights: Illuminating the edge of your deck and its steps is essential to preventing trips and falls in the dark. Whether you're fixing up an existing structure or setting out to build a new one, consider SMY Lighting's recessed LED deck lights (available at Amazon). The lights are just over 2 inches in diameter and about 3/4 inch deep. They are durable enough to withstand weather and foot traffic and maintain a consistent (while economical) glow. The 6-piece set should be ample lighting for a few deck steps when spaced 3 feet apart.

RELATED: Safety Check: 5 Tips to Protect Your Deck from Disaster

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7. Spot Lighting

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Also known as “up-lighting” or simply landscape lighting, spot lighting is standard-voltage landscaping lighting used to shine narrow, moderate- to high-intensity beams upwards, usually to showcase a plant or ornamental feature. You might install it at or above ground level below tall trees or a lawn ornament to make them look more statuesque.

To light taller objects, such as trees, opt for bullet-shaped lights on a base you drive into the ground with a stake. Bullet lights have an adjustable head that sits above ground and casts bright pins of light over longer distances at an angle of your choice. For shorter features, such as shrubs, try well lights, round lights that are pushed into the ground to cast light upwards over shorter distances. Because they’re hidden in the ground, they let small garden features take center stage.

Our Pick for Spot Lights: Cast a warm white light on your prized patch of landscaping around the patio or front lawn with hykolity's LED low-voltage spot lights (available on Amazon). Sold in sets of four with an IP65 rating that's suitable for wet locations, these spot lights connect to your 12-volt low-voltage lighting system in a matter of minutes, thanks to the user-friendly installation process. And they are a set-and-forget addition to your yard: Because the LED bulb is completely integrated with the light fixture, it's both highly efficient and maintenance-free.

RELATED: 12 Expert Tips for Eye-Catching Front Yard Landscaping

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Let There Be Light

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There's a lighting option for every backyard.

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20 Garden Lighting Ideas to Make Your Plants Shine

By

Erica Puisis

Erica Puisis

Erica Puisis writes about home products for The Spruce and specializes in interior design and plant care. She's contributed to Forbes and smart home blogs like Smart Home Solver and TechDigg.

Learn more about The Spruce's Editorial Process

Published on 05/20/22

Reviewed by

Kathleen Miller

Reviewed by Kathleen Miller

Kathleen Miller is a highly-regarded Master Gardener and Horticulturist who shares her knowledge of sustainable living, organic gardening, farming, and landscape design. She founded Gaia's Farm and Gardens, a working sustainable permaculture farm, and writes for Gaia Grows, a local newspaper column. She has over 30 years of experience in gardening and sustainable farming.

Learn more about The Spruce's Review Board

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Enjoy the beauty of your landscaping even at night by adding garden lighting. The most popular options for garden lights are spotlights, stake lights, or string lights—all of which can be solar or battery-powered.

When deciding on the best garden lighting options, consider your purpose. Are you looking for an ambient glow or seeking brighter light to increase visibility along pathways and water features? Warm, soft light is great for giving gardens a glow, while larger, brighter bulbs are typically a better pick if you want to illuminate tripping hazards or keep wandering feet out of your flower beds.

Whether you have a large garden bed, vertical garden space, or container plants, get inspired with these 20 different garden lighting ideas.

Garden lighting: basic rules, features, nuances

The summer garden is full of natural colors, they just need to be emphasized with light. The winter garden needs a different kind of light - revitalizing and transforming.

Landscape and garden lighting can transform an object, the main thing is the skillful approach of their application. It is not necessary to limit yourself to banal lamps located along the paths or on the open terrace. With the help of artificial light, you can emphasize what in ordinary light seems inconspicuous. Incorrectly selected light and its location can disrupt the harmony of the garden. For example, the night pool, illuminated by bright yellow light, looks terrible. That is why a specialist with skills in this field should deal with the placement of lighting equipment.

Evening lighting of the garden should be created not only with the laws of optics, but also with the logic of design. Decorative lighting in the garden can create a special mood, it allows you to correctly place accents, draw attention to a particular plant and add visual effects in places where they are missing. Lighting devices, even in the daytime, can perform decorative functions. Ground lamps illuminate certain corners of the garden only at night, during the day they are almost impossible to see. Garden lighting for large areas allows you to highlight certain areas, and for small areas - to mark the boundaries.

In recreation areas, it is recommended to install lighting devices that emit soft, diffused light in warm colors, which emphasizes the warmth and comfort of the hearth. Today, architectural lamps are considered one of the most fashionable and sought after.

Choosing a garden lamp

When it comes to choosing a lamp, consumers often pay attention only to the form. But in fact, you should pay special attention to the lamps, because it is the lamps that will create the desired lighting effect.

If the garden light source is fluorescent lamps, the body of the light fixture must have a high degree of protection against moisture and dust. Luminaires with fluorescent lamps are large, so they are difficult to adjust.

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Halogen lamps can be compact. The main disadvantage of this light source is strong heating and a short service life. For plants, the additional heat emitted by the light source does not always work well. Strong heat can also quickly destroy the film or paint applied to colored halogen lamps or lighting fixtures.

If you need garden lighting in places where there is water nearby, you should pay attention to the shape of the luminaire and the lighting technology. To illuminate the rose garden, it is recommended to give preference to built-in or ground lighting fixtures with a voltage of 12 volts. To give sophistication to the original boulder on the alpine hill, it is recommended to install a compact lamp equipped with an LED lamp. In addition, installation should be carried out among ground cover plants.

Creating Unique Garden Lighting with LED Lights

Recently, many homeowners have begun incorporating a new type of lighting into their landscaping - LED. There are many reasons for the popularity of LEDs, because thanks to them you can create the most unusual lighting effects without further maintenance.

LEDs are reliable, they do not heat up during operation, they have high efficiency, which means they can reduce energy costs. LEDs emit monochrome, perfectly pure color. More recently, LEDs have been developed that emit white light. These light sources are insensitive to temperature changes and will be an excellent illumination of water objects. If you wish, you can create a luminous garden path in the garden if you purchase paving slabs with a glass surface, inside of which LEDs are mounted.

Lighting fixtures with LEDs can be used not only for illuminating plants, but also for contour lighting of small architectural forms. The purity of the light makes it possible to achieve the highest decorative effect, especially when it comes to moving water streams.

An important advantage of LED garden lighting is also the ease of operation. To power the LEDs, it is necessary to specially lay power lines that do not exceed 24 volts. The service life of LEDs is 10-12 years of continuous operation.

In order to achieve the goals of garden lighting, it is necessary not only to select the appropriate types of lighting fixtures and their installation locations, but also the light sources in them. Lamps should not harm plants. In this regard, LEDs are especially safe.

Garden and landscape lighting, landscape lighting, garden lighting

When the sun leaves our garden, turning it into a twilight realm, it seems as if life in it freezes. Roses fade, firs become gloomy, and only the moonlit path sparkles on the surface of the pond.

Garden lamps

To prolong the day, to give the garden an exquisite beauty at night, can be done with the help of a skillfully designed landscape lighting project and no less skillful implementation of it. You should not limit yourself to banal garden lamps on the outdoor terrace and along the paths. Artificial light can emphasize the beauty of a rock garden, make a fountain and a waterfall sparkle with crystal splashes, highlight a spectacular shrub and add mystery to a rose garden. In general, light will help to prolong the charm of the garden, when a warm summer evening gives way to night. But light can also ruin your garden if it breaks the harmony of color. In a pool at night lit with bright yellow light, you will look terrible. And the red light will fill your stream with streams of blood. Blue neon will kill the charm of a red rose. So it’s better not to experiment, but to listen to the advice of a garden designer, trusting him to pick up and place lamps in the garden.

Landscape (landscape) lamps

As a rule, the first lighting that a homeowner thinks about is more of a domestic purpose, i.e. purely utilitarian. Indeed, the site must necessarily have lighting for garden paths, a porch, an entrance to a garage or a parking lot, etc. This is important, first of all, for safety. For general purpose lighting, as a rule, pole or wall lamps with traditional incandescent lamps are used. In accordance with the overall design of the garden and buildings, lamps are chosen in the style of classic, modern or high-tech. This is a matter of taste and capabilities of the owner, as well as the general idea of ​​​​design. But an indispensable condition for garden lighting is the strength of the design of a garden lamp, a metal case and a shock-resistant shade. However, the traditional light of incandescent lamps makes your garden unimpressive in the evening. In such lighting, the facade of the house turns gray, and decorative bushes turn black. Involuntarily, you have to think about how to additionally highlight the most advantageous objects in your garden in terms of design. Of course, you can use colored incandescent lamps, light filters. But you can also pay attention to more modern light sources... Garden lamps, landscape lamps.

Decorative garden lighting

Garden lighting is serious business and not cheap. Therefore, the approach to it must be professional. This applies not only to functional lighting, but also to decorative lighting. Evening garden lighting should be created taking into account the laws of optics and design logic. It is decorative lighting that creates a mood in the garden, allows you to place accents, draw attention to a beautiful plant or emphasize the unusual crown of a tree and make the water of the pond play. Lamps in the daytime themselves can perform decorative functions. On the contrary, ground garden and park lamps illuminate certain corners of the garden only at night, but during the day they are almost invisible. In a large garden, evening lighting helps to highlight private areas, and in a small garden it visually expands the boundaries. By the way, it is easier to do this, knowing the features of light. For example, warm light brings the object of illumination closer, and cold light, on the contrary, pushes it away. It is very important not to make a mistake in the choice of light for recreation areas - patios, barbecues, etc. Only soft, diffused light of warm tones is suitable here, emphasizing the comfort and warmth of a home. A very fashionable and attractive element for lighting these areas are architectural lamps.

Garden lighting project

Having weighed all the pros and cons of various garden lighting technologies, as well as your financial capabilities and the quality of the electricity supply, you can proceed to the most crucial moment. To the search for specialists who will competently develop a lighting scheme for your garden. It would be wrong to think that any electrical engineer will be able to develop a quality project without the participation of a garden designer, because garden lighting should pursue a specific goal - convenience and safety when moving around the garden at night, focusing our attention on the most valuable objects of the garden landscape, arranging accents in the garden. At the same time, it is important that the light does not destroy the atmosphere of coziness and comfort.

It is better to design a lighting system simultaneously with the development of a landscaping project. Agree, it’s ridiculous, and it’s expensive to destroy already laid paths, dig up flower beds in order to lay an electric cable. Everything related to power supply is better to entrust to professionals, because there is nothing more important on the site than safety. Make sure that the cable is laid to the optimal depth (at least 40 cm, and preferably 70 cm) and is protected by a metal hose from accidental damage when digging a site or planting plants. Garden lighting project, garden lamps.

The garden lighting project links together all objects in the garden, front garden, on the outside of the house and other architectural objects, allows you to adjust the degree of illumination of the garden at different times of the day and season. For example, part of the lighting may generally work only on special occasions, and something every evening. You can provide automatic shutdown of all fixtures or only specific sections of the system. The project provides for security measures and the possibility of installing garden sockets in remote areas of the garden. Such sockets make it much easier to connect, for example, pond equipment. Strict adherence to the scheme of the lighting system will allow in the future to carry out repair work without any problems.

Garden lamp selection

Choosing a luminaire is not an easy task. Most often, we are limited only by its form. In fact, it is more important to choose not even the lamp itself, but the lamps that will give this or that lighting effect. By the way, choosing this or that technology, we not only choose the light, but also solve the financial issue and the problems of energy saving. When choosing fluorescent lamps, you should be aware that using them in the garden will require an expensive waterproof housing. In addition, luminaires with fluorescent lamps are quite large, and such light is more difficult to control. And in the garden I want to have lamps that can give both bright light and muffled. Choosing a garden lamp

Halogen lamps are quite tiny, but their main drawback is strong heating, respectively, a shorter service life, and for plants located nearby, additional heat, which is not always good. Strong heat quickly destroys the dye or film that covers colored halogen lamps or fixtures in which they are enclosed. Particular attention should be paid to the choice of lamps for lighting water bodies. Thus, when choosing the shape of a lamp, you must also choose the right lighting technology depending on the purpose. For example, to illuminate a rose garden, it is better to use recessed or ground lamps. To illuminate a beautiful boulder on an alpine hill, it is better to use a miniature lamp with a halogen lamp, but you should not install it among ground cover plants. All these features of lighting technology should be carefully worked out during the design work.

Garden LED lights

"Advanced" homeowners are opting to incorporate a new type of lighting into their landscaping - LEDs. They allow you to create the most unusual lighting effects, and at the same time, they are devoid of many of the disadvantages of traditional light sources.

LEDs are small, reliable, cool, and highly efficient - i.e. they reduce electricity consumption. They give a monochrome, absolutely pure color, and recently LEDs have been developed that emit white light. LEDs are completely insensitive to temperature changes. Great for illuminating water features. Today, you can even lay out a luminous garden path if you buy paving slabs with a glass surface with built-in LEDs.

Garden LED luminaires are used both for illuminating plants and for contour lighting of a house and small architectural forms. Due to the purity of the color, it is possible to achieve a high decorative effect when highlighting moving water streams, specific plants, for example, “color” a common spruce in the evening in blue. LED lighting is easy to control, it can be included in the general computer control of the house.

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