When nature and technology collide: Garden lighting for your great outdoors

Your garden is a serene place. It's a place for you to sit back and relax. It's a place for you to reflect. But, what happens at night? Your garden is shrouded in darkness. Plants need light, and they seem to appreciate the darkness, but you want to be able to enjoy the garden at all hours. Solution? Lights. Here's how to light up the night.

LED Lights

LED lights are often used in places where low wattage is necessary or desirable. In outdoor gardens, this is what you probably want to use. The low wattage means a lower temperature – touch-wise. Because LEDs emit 75 per cent less heat than standard incandescent bulbs, they won't roast your flowers. In fact, you can bury them right next to almost anything without any major hassles.

These lights, which can be found on certain websites, aren't the cheapest lighting option, but they make up for that in power savings and longevity. Lights can be purchased as single units or strip lights.

Programmable Lights

Don't want to fuss about when the lights come on at night? Choose programmable lights. These lights are made to be set on a timer. In fact, the secret isn't so much in the light itself as it is in the wiring scheme. Programmable lights are placed in the ground, or around the garden, and will turn on and off at a specified time.

So, for example, let's say it gets dark around your place at 5:00 PM. You want the lights to turn on at about this time. So, you set the timer for 5, and that's when the lights pop on. You go to bed at about midnight, so you set the lights to turn off then. Once you set it up once, you can forget about it. Your light show will continue for as long as you want – hands off.

Spike Lights

Spike lights are those that you stick into the ground, and they can light up plants up to 3 metres tall. It creates an atmosphere with form and colour that just isn't possible with the moonlight. Spike lights are available at most home improvement centres, but they can also be purchased online. Really, before you buy them though you should understand your garden. Some plants don't look so good with spike lighting. If the plants that would benefit from it the most are dormant for half the year, it might not be worth the cost of lighting them up. Ambient lighting might be better.

Change Up The Temperature

The colour temperature is something else to consider. Aside from just the heat of the lamp itself, or the type of lamp you buy, there's the colour of the lamp that you must decide on. Cooler colours will make your garden seem colder. Bluish light, which is reflected in the 5000K band of light, tends to be “cold.” Warmer light, in the 2500K band, will make your garden look warm.

But, you might not mind a “cold” lighting – especially since it reproduces colours more accurately. With warmer lighting, you'll tend to see a yellowish tinge or hue. The closer you get to 6000K, you'll notice a slight blue or no hue or tinge at all.

If you're stuck for what to buy, consider what you want to showcase at night. Do you want your garden to appear subdued? Or do you want your garden to be full of vibrance, similar to how it looks during the day. If you want the former, go with the “warm” lighting. If you want the latter, go with the “cold” lighting. There are no wrong answers here, just personal preference.

Underwater Lights

If you've got a water feature in your garden, you might want to experiment with underwater lights. They carry the highest ingress protection rating, IP68. IP44 is a rating that's good enough to survive insects and enough to be splash-proof. IP67 is enough to survive pressure-hosing.

Whatever type of light you choose, make sure that you have a professional hook it up for you, unless you have experience in attaching underwater lights. You could end up shorting out the entire lighting sytem, or you could unknowingly or accidentally electrocute yourself.