Spotlight on farm lighting

By PAT LAWRENCE

patlawrence@cinci.rr.com

Land­scap­ing on a farm gen­er­ally reflects the “less is more” phi­los­o­phy: the less work and less water it requires, the more likely it is to hap­pen. That’s why land­scap­ing with light is such a bright idea for land-loving farm­ers. There’s no water­ing, no fer­til­iza­tion, no prun­ing and no treat­ments for bugs or dis­ease. Yet land­scap­ing with light gives a great return on invest­ment, adding safety, secu­rity, extended usage, increased prop­erty val­ues and a glow­ing wel­come home at the end of a long day.

The prac­ti­cal side of gar­den light­ing is that it helps young, old, and tired eyes see where they’re walk­ing at night and it dis­cour­ages intrud­ers by clearly light­ing the ground level and elim­i­nat­ing shad­ows near the house. It’s also prac­ti­cal to make the most of any effort already invested; night light­ing a pretty yard, a well-loved gar­den or new deck prac­ti­cally dou­bles the num­ber of hours they can be enjoyed.

Most land­scape light­ing today uses low volt­age. Unlike 120-volt sys­tems, it’s safer to work with and less costly to install. There’s lit­tle main­te­nance other than chang­ing bulbs and keep­ing fix­tures free of debris, and though low-voltage lights receive one-tenth the power, there’s no limit to the effects they can achieve. Solar lights are an alter­na­tive to low volt­age sys­tems with ben­e­fits that include free elec­tric­ity, ease of instal­la­tion and no need to run lines or worry about those lines later. Brighter, more energy effi­cient lamps have improved the per­for­mance of solar light­ing, and there’s a wide range of types and styles of solar pow­ered lights avail­able. Mer­cury vapor lights, though dimin­ish­ing in use, can also pro­vide aes­thet­ics and secu­rity light­ing to any prop­erty. One hundred-watt mer­cury vapor down-lights are very func­tional and effec­tively cover a wide area. When installed cor­rectly, they often pro­vide 5–7 years of light­ing before need­ing service.

Low volt­age up-lighting is the tech­nique uti­lized most fre­quently by land­scape design­ers to empha­size par­tic­u­lar fea­tures in the yard. Fix­tures may include spot or flood lights as well as in-ground fix­tures and are typ­i­cally switched sep­a­rately for max­i­mum con­trol. Open branched and orna­men­tal trees, Japan­ese maples and dog­woods are espe­cially suit­able for up-lighting. When aim­ing ground lights straight up into foliage, the trunk should also be bathed in light. (Oth­er­wise, the shim­mer­ing leaves will look like a UFO about to land.) The up-light fix­tures do need to be shielded and placed to avoid pro­duc­ing a glare to any­one walk­ing by.

On a farm with mature trees, down-lighting adds under­stated ele­gance, casts inter­est­ing shad­ows and pro­vides invit­ing illu­mi­na­tion to the sur­round­ing area. When illu­mi­nat­ing foliage from above, lights are installed high up in the canopy above branches and leaves. Land­scap­ers often place two 20-watt down-lights as high in a tree as pos­si­ble, point­ing them so the beams don’t cross. Lights placed above an object or area and aimed down­ward imi­tate nat­ural light, like moon­light, and pro­vide secu­rity to areas like a back entrance or side walk­way. Care should be taken to hide or shield the fix­tures from view. Down-light fix­tures include spot or flood lights in low volt­age or mer­cury vapor. One mount­ing option is the use of rub­ber tree straps that require no screws and do not require adjust­ing as the tree grows.

Back-lighting involves posi­tion­ing a light in the same place as an inter­est­ingly tex­tured sur­face, like a brick wall or a stone fence. The back-light empha­sizes the tex­ture and reflects a gen­tle light into the sur­round­ings. Back-lights placed behind objects or plants cast a sil­hou­ette with strik­ing effect; tall grasses flooded from behind with light can be very dra­matic. As with down-lights, fix­tures should be hid­den from view. Spot­lights, flood lights or in-ground fix­tures can be used for back-lighting.

Tasks lights or spot lights use more energy to cast a focused beam of bright light at an object or other focus point, like a flag or a farm sign­board. High­light an ele­ment that deserves atten­tion, maybe a foun­tain or a rock out­crop­ping, by aim­ing two or more lights at it. Cross­ing beams reduces harsh shad­ows that form when only one shines on an object. Spot­lights should be used spar­ingly, really just for accent, to high­light an inter­est­ing archi­tec­tural detail or land­scape addi­tion. Use com­par­a­tively low wattage flood­lights, with bulbs no more than 100 watts and take advan­tage of the size and con­ve­nience of 12 volt fix­tures to use more lights, far­ther apart. A smaller bulb will often be ade­quate. LED land­scape lights actu­ally put out a lot of light and they’re effi­cient. Try­ing to illu­mi­nate large areas with too few fix­tures using lots of wattage usu­ally results in an unpleas­ant glare and unbal­anced effect.

Path­way light is a soft, sub­tle light for walk­ways or steps. The fix­tures gen­er­ally pro­trude about 20 inches above ground and come in a vari­ety of styles and mate­ri­als, includ­ing solid brass and stain­less steel. Path­way lights are impor­tant safety fea­tures, guid­ing peo­ple through a walk­way, illu­mi­nat­ing steps or light­ing the way for vehi­cles along a dri­ve­way. Both low volt­age and solar light­ing are suit­able for path­way light­ing, if the solar units can be posi­tioned so they can get suf­fi­cient charge dur­ing the day. Accent solar light­ing is one of the most con­ve­nient, most ver­sa­tile and least expen­sive of the var­i­ous types of lights. Eas­ily moved, their accents can read­ily change as the gar­den grows. To get the most from accent light­ing in a gar­den, place fix­tures 20 feet apart or more to cre­ate over­lap­ping pools of light rather than con­tin­u­ous illumination.

The most com­mon prob­lem with path lights is a farmer’s pas­sion for sym­me­try. Lights placed too closely, too evenly, make the path or dri­ve­way look like a run­way. Experts sug­gest stag­ger­ing the lights — cre­at­ing a zig-zag pat­tern from side to side — and not putting path lights equally on oppo­site sides. No mat­ter what their place­ment, fix­tures pre­fer not to be mowed, fer­til­ized or watered. Unless lined by an already planted area, down-lights or wall lights may be a bet­ter choice for cer­tain paths.

Vary­ing out­door light­ing tech­niques and types with a com­bi­na­tion of flood lights, spot­lights and path lights can add char­ac­ter to a new farm­house and drama to a weath­ered farm­stead. How­ever, out­door light­ing should be a sub­tle addi­tion; it’s meant to accen­tu­ate fea­tures, not hog the atten­tion. Pro­fes­sion­als know to cre­ate spaces and then not fill them up, a land­scape prac­tice that can be tough for first-timers to embrace.

Pro­fes­sional land­scap­ers also use very lit­tle front light­ing. Whether they light from above or below, they place it from the sides and with more light from one side than the other for the most inter­est­ing shadow effects. They tend to select a cen­ter of attrac­tion for each lighted area and high­light it with addi­tional bright­ness or a light com­ing from an unusual angle (like straight up).

Land­scape light­ing adds beauty, safety and util­ity to farm life and extends inte­rior liv­ing spaces at night. It’s always good to be home on the farm, bet­ter still to keep enjoy­ing it after the sun goes down.

Posted by Rob Treynor on Aug 4 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.