Turn Your Fountain Into a Centerpiece with Landscape Lighting
Posted on August 29, 2009
Filed Under Fountain Lighting | Leave a Comment
With landscape lighting, water features such as fountains and pools can be greatly enhanced with amazing effects. You can make a fountain glow, illuminate an entire pond from within or accentuate a reflecting pool. But choosing the right lighting for your water features can be the difference between just a mundane landscape component and a stunning focal point of the garden.
The most common and popular choice for fountain lighting is the submersible light. Submersible lights are placed underwater and up lite the fountain creating a shimmering effect. In addition to illuminating the fountain, the submersible lights illuminate the streams of water as they flow in to the basin. Many of these lights come with color filters that allow the user to experience vibrant and get creative with the effects of the lighting.
In addition to submersible lights, landscape lighting can be up-light with solar, incandescent or LED lighting. Solar lighting is becoming the choice for many people simply because there is no ongoing energy cost associated with solar outdoor lighting after installation. Also, solar lighting is very easy to install. LED lighting offers a great deal of creativity due to color options available and also the bulbs last much longer than incandescent bulbs. For larger fountains, a new option that is available is the moonlight globe. The globes are battery operated, come in various sizes and colors and can float in the basin of the fountain. In the right setting, smaller globes could be permanently installed around the base of the fountain to add lighting and color. They also are available with speakers in them for additional ambience.
Some water features, for instance a water wall or a floor fountain, would benefit from overhead or down lighting. In this case, the landscape lighting acts like a spotlight on the water feature. There are many different applications available here. Some lights can be incorporated in to the design of the fountain (if it is custom made) so that the lighting is obscure and nonintrusive while other fountains will require over head lighting to be attached to surrounding trees or other structures such as a building, pergola, wooden windows or lamp post.
Choosing the correct lighting techniques for your fountain will take a little planning on your part. You will want to experiment with a flashlight at night to see exactly the locations for your outdoor garden lights that will best serve you for your fountain lighting project. (If you are considering hiring someone to design a landscape lighting system for you, be sure and ask if they have a temporary kit that you can use to experiment with for a few days. Many are now offering these to their clients.)
Many times fountains are the centerpiece of the garden and need to been lighted more heavily. My advice is to choose fountain lights that will accentuate and illuminate your fountain without overpowering the surrounding landscape. Do a little research and planning prior to starting the project to insure that the results are what you desired. Visit this site to have more landscape design ideas .
Learn more about fountain lighting products here.
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