Backyard Lighting Ideas | GARDEN | Great Home Ideas

We give you all the tips you need to help plan how to light your garden.

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one element that is often overlooked when you’re designing a garden is lighting but if you love spending as much time in your garden as I do adding a bit of light means you can double your time outside so you basically get two gardens for the price of one I’ve drawn up a bit of a base plan of the garden and that’s going to allow me to work out what sort of lighting I want and there’s three main types you can have one is utility which is things like Pathways and over barbecues then there’s also mood lighting so creating a bit of atmosphere I’ll be putting lights in the depths of the garden beds to achieve that and then I’ve got main features that I want to light up things like this AMAC and this lovely Fern behind me I’m going to draw all that up on the plan so when I head off to the hardware I know what lights I need but I’ve also taken measurements to work out exactly how much cable I need as well is I’m going to going to bre going [Applause] toly when it comes to picking your garden lights it can be daunting because there’s a huge array available so find one brand and stick to it that way all the components are going to work together cuz it’s not just the lights you need you need the cable the Splitters and the Transformer now Transformers are really important because they turn 240 volt power into 12vt Power which means you don’t need to bury it in the ground and it’s safer for things like kids and dogs there is a bit of maass needed this one is a 60 W Transformer and I could fit 12 of these 5w lights on it but I always think it’s better to go bigger with your Transformer that way you’re never going to overload it this one is 150 WS which means I could fit up to 30 lights on it it’s really important never to overload it so you’d only put 29 on this which is convenient because if you want to add more over time this is the way to do [Music] it once you’ve got all your bits Home it really is quite easy to put it together you need to start with your Transformer you plug that into a plug socket now in an Ideal World you keep this covered up with these bits on the end that’s where your wiring goes and it is simple as Plug and Play squeeze together and do it up to make it weatherproof you then need to run this cable all the way around the outside of your garden you can add more to the end or you can just put this weatherproof cap on once you’ve done that it’s time to move onto the lighting and it really is as simple as taking this clip and plugging it into that wire that runs around the garden just like that these can be really flexible as well you can take them off and move them around which is great to highlight different things at different times of the year take a deciduous tree for example in its full Autumn Glory it might look great with the light shining on it but then in Winter you can get a sculpture effect by moving it around to the back when you’re running your cable through the garden bed it’s a good idea to add a couple of extra meters that will give you the flexibility to move the lights around at a later date the problem is though when you’ve got excess cable it tends to poke up through the mulch and look ugly so you can use some irrigation pegs just to hold it down Loop it up instead I’ve got an old coat hanger that I’ve cut up and I’m just going to use that to hold it in [Music] place when you’re laying a cable like this it’s really important not to have it too close to the grass Edge because if you come to do the edges with a whipper snipper you’ll cut through the cable so I’m just hiding this under the deck or you can pull it back further under your lawn [Music] to create a bit of mood lighting I’m just putting some spotlights along this Edge and they’re going to wash light down onto the bamboo it’s going to give us two different effects firstly it’s going to draw you out from inside the house secondly give you a bit of background light for the table and chairs I’m also going to put one down on the barbecue that’s going to work for utility it’s really nice to have a pendant light above an outdoor setting but just using a spotlight wouldn’t look very nice so I’ve got this old dryer drum which has got loads of perforations in it I’m just going to use the same Spotlight mount it in there put it above the table and it’s going to give us a great little [Music] fure as part of our utility lighting I’m also putting in some spike lights that will direct light across this deck and just show off the St steps now I’m using brushed stainless steel because I think it looks nice but I’m going to use the same lights in Black against this wall here they’re going to uplight and recess into the garden so you’ll only get the lighting as the effect when you’re lighting your garden you want to think about the Shadows you’re creating not about the light you’re trying to achieve you want to light up things like this textured wall it’s going to bounce light around and give you a lovely mood the number one rule when lighting anything in a Garden is to keep the light away from eye level because it’s really uncomfortable when you’re sitting down and that comes into play when you’re trying to light up features so you want to get your lights in the ground and then wait till Dusk and just make sure it doesn’t hit anybody’s eyes when it starts to get dark but before it’s completely dark is the perfect time to go around and check all your lights that way you can see the effect you’re going to get but if you’ve got any issues it’s not too dark to fix them [Music] with all our tweaks done our garden lighting is complete and we’ve got an array of different effects we’ve got utility Lighting on the paths and at the barbecue we’ve got mood lighting surrounding the gardens and of course our features are lit up as well not to mention the pendant over the table now I love Gardens during the day but at night that’s when they really come alive [Music]