Tips for Choosing Landscape Tree Lighting

Think of chopping that tree in your yard just because it doesn’t look good? Maybe you should consider Landscape tree lighting. In this article, we'll share ideas on how to choose landscape tree lighting that is safe and attractive. Let's get started.

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Landscape tree lighting can improve the way your house looks as long as you know how to do it. It can elevate your house’s look with a flick of a switch and some strategic light placement. That said, finding the right fixture and lighting designs can be challenging because trees have an asymmetrical structure.

Don’t stick to a particular style of lighting and be rigid with it. If LED lights aren’t giving you the desired effect, try floodlights for a change.

Let’s look at some ideas to increase your tree’s aesthetic appeal with optimal lighting effects.

What is Landscape Tree Lighting?

The landscape tree lighting is a simple concept that revolves around up-lighting trees around your property to help enhance the tree trunks, leaves, and overall outdoor lighting. People usually install simple landscape lights to do this, but there are other options for it.

Making these installations will help you improve your home’s architectural features by letting the spotlight shine directly. This way you can show off all the beautiful trees you have in your home even at night.

Moreover, the light coming in from different angles can also create a dramatic effect on the surroundings. The landscape tree lighting is like adding more pieces to the puzzle to improve the overall landscape of the surroundings.

It will also impact the viewing angle and water feature of the outdoor lighting. However, once you are done incorporating all these elements in the dark, you will see a great-looking tree landscape.

landscape tree uplight
landscape tree uplight

Benefits of Landscape Tree Lighting

Landscape tree lighting offers plentiful benefits for the owners, which we are going to mention below. These benefits include the following:

Higher Aesthetic Appeal

The biggest reason why owners install landscape tree lighting is that these lights improve the way your outdoor looks. It is because illuminated areas help achieve a better overall look. You will see a great difference in your lawns, gardens, and overall property look.

Your neighbors will probably fall in love with the way your house shines during the night. All you need to do is add a few landscape tree lighting fixtures to the building and you will get a great outcome in the front or backyard.

Highlighting Features

Setting the right amount of brightness outdoors is the easiest way to enhance your landscape’s overall appeal. This applies especially to houses with tons of multi-shape trees, a fountain, or something similar.

However, essentials like viewing angles can make a huge difference in the overall of your tree lighting, but more on that later.

Enhanced Security with Landscape Tree Lighting

Property security is a big concern for homeowners because burglaries, theft, and other problems are quite common in residential spaces.

While installing security and alarm systems is a great way to enhance the way your yard or ground looks, you should try to think about lighting additions around your trees to enhance the overall visibility and security around your residential areas.

landscape uplighting
landscape uplighting

Maximizes Outdoor Space

Outdoor space has a huge impact on the overall look of your garden. It is more than just creating visual interest as you can make your property area look much bigger than usual.

However, maximizing outdoor space takes time, including creating a focal point, if you want to create a moonlight effect in the garden especially. Nonetheless, properly placed lighting fixtures can help improve how big or small your property looks as a whole.

Improved Curb Appeal

Adding tree lighting can be the final step to improving your curb appeal. Most properties look beautiful during the day but lose their elegance during the night because of lighting. However, once you install landscape tree lighting, you will see your home look and curb appeal improve significantly. It all depends on how your place fixtures in the outdoors.

What Should be Considered When Buying Landscape Tree Lighting?

Making the perfect landscape tree lighting is a fundamental part of formulating the perfect look for your home. However, setting up the perfect landscape tree lighting is not as easy as it sounds. However, we have lined up a few factors that we think you should consider before coming up with further light ideas. Let us begin.

Consider the Current Lighting

The perfect tree lighting design begins with considering what you have right now in your outdoors. If you do not have any lighting setup, then it is pretty straightforward that you need to begin from scratch.

However, if the outdoors have existing lighting, consider what you can do about it. For instance, start by thinking if you need new light connections, placement changes, light varieties, and several other essentials.

Most newly constructed residences have landscape lighting on the left and right corners of the building. This helps create equal lighting throughout the area and helps create a more balanced look in the surroundings.

Consider Your Property Structure

The property structure in your surroundings has a huge impact on the overall look of your lighting. For instance, if you have unconventional designs and surroundings in your home, install extra lighting around them. This will help create the best possible outdoor lighting for your property.

Moreover, consider installing path lights, or accent lights in the surroundings to give it a better overall look. Highlighting these unconventional features will help you get a better look for your house as a whole.

Pick a Concept

The first thing to consider before coming up with landscape tree lighting is picking a concept for your ground and surroundings. Installing simple bulbs may sound like a simpler alternative but it is not that appealing. Instead, we suggest picking a lighting concept you like.

For instance, some homeowners like lighting up their backyard, whereas, others prefer focusing through path lights by placing lights in a way that you see the spotlight shining directly.

However, we suggest installing low voltage light alternatives in this because you could end up getting more costs for options like this.

Consider Light Options

The perfect outdoor lighting designs require focusing on smaller trees across the wall. It will help you create a subtle uplighting look and conserve energy at the same time. Users can choose plenty of bulbs, light, and fixing options as it is all about what you prefer in your landscape lighting.

However, the kind of placement you choose depends on the source, and the amount of lighting you want the fixtures to create.

For example, a simple spotlight can uplift your outdoors completely. On the other, you can choose several smaller lights to create balanced, good-looking lighting.

Similarly, flood light fixtures can create a wide beam to cover maximum areas for uplighting outdoors. They work differently than spotlights but are still a good consideration.

Light Fixture Color Temperature

The color temperature is the shade of lighting produced by a fixture. It is measured on the Kelvin scale and is a great way of lighting your yard or wall in the best possible way.

It can help you illuminate the outdoors in the best possible way even if you only have two trees in the outdoors. You can also mix up subtle and bright lights to adjust the brightness levels in the outdoors.

Remember, the higher the color temperature of a light, the more it will resonate with the Sun’s light. You can easily find the color temperature information on the light packaging. For instance, lights with blue hues mostly range in the 2400 K range.

However, a bulb with a color temperature of 3500 K usually produces an amber hue. Moreover, bulbs between the 3500 and 4100 K range create a whiter hue.

color temperature
color temperature

Outdoor Lighting Effect Creation

Effect creation revolves around blending lights and keeping the light spread in mind while dealing with effect creation. Additionally, always ensure having sufficient fixtures for all bulbs you purchase.

For example, spotlights without fixtures are not of any use for uplighting tasks. Similarly, the right fixture will also ensure proper energy spread throughout the yard or on a wall that you want to illuminate.

Keep in mind that most lights have a 15-degree spread. Meaning, your light will reflect at an angle of 15-degrees from the original lighting. So, check the placement accordingly.

For instance, you should always keep a 155-degree difference if you want the light to reach the ground. Similarly, a floodlight has a 30-degree coverage in the area. so if you have a fountain or a similar central piece in the outdoor, you can add it.

You can also place the lighting in the tree to focus on the desired area, which is known as downlighting.

Landscape Lighting Ideas

It is safe to say that you need to consider several things before making the perfect Landscape tree lighting. However, these considerations will not benefit you if you do not have the right landscape lighting ideas.

Incorporating the best landscape lighting idea is the best way to create unique, appealing, addition to your outdoor lighting for better results.

However, it is not as it sounds, because the concept, material, space, cost, energy efficiency, etc, are all necessary factors that you will keep in mind while adding the landscape lighting ideas in your outdoor.

Following are the top landscape lighting types you should incorporate around your property to get the best possible results from it.

  • Up Lighting
  • Silhouetting
  • Moonlighting
  • Grazing
  • Washing

Landscape Tree Lighting Ideas and Guide

Landscape Tree Lighting
Landscape Tree Lighting

Creating the perfect landscape tree lighting requires choosing ideas that are easy to install, affordable, and easy to maintain. However, most of the tree lighting ideas are very difficult to incorporate within a property.

Therefore, we are going to mention some basic ideas in this comprehensive guide. Following are the most common concerns and questions that people ask for their lighting needs.

How do you uplight a large tree?

Lighting large trees add a more dramatic effect to the trees in the garden lighting scheme. It can help create a more vertical look in the trees, improving the overall look of the section.

You can easily add metal halide uplights, mostly a 36-degree angle. This angle is perfect because it penetrates through the trees, helping create a more balanced look.

You need to place the lighting above the water table at a distance of at least 300 mm of the shingle drainage underneath the fitting.

outdoor

How to create downlighting?

The ideal downlight in your garden requires placing the light on top of the tree between its branch. This way the light projects in a downward direction creating the perfect downlighting look. The downlighting is perfect to bring focus on flowers, bushes, and other smaller entities of your outdoors.

On the other hand, you can place the lights in the tree branches to create a more moonlighting effect in the garden. However, you need to ensure installing the fixtures correctly. It also helps create a moving shadow on the patio or the area surrounding it.

How do you spotlight a tree?

Accent lights are the most common choice for users who want to create a spotlight on a tree. Therefore, you should try to place multiple lightings with equal distances between the tree.

For example, if you have a tree against a wall, you can install lights about a foot away from a tree. Bulbs with a light spread of around 10° – 15° beam should suffice for the trunk.

Whereas, the branches and the foliage require a light with a wider spread. We also suggest mixing multiple sources, spread ranges, and color temperatures to create the perfect spotlight in a tree.

led landscape spotlights
led landscape spotlights

How do you light the bottom of a tree?

Lighting the bottom of the tree may sound simple, but it is one of the most challenging parts of creating perfect lighting in your outdoors. It is because most people prefer easier alternatives like wrapping lights around the tree trunk and the bottom of the tree.

However, you need to mix lights with different color temperatures, light intensity, and light range to create the perfect lighting on the bottom of a tree.

The best way is to add high-intensity lights, so that shrubs, flowers, and other smaller plantations on the bottom become clear too. Avoid adding these lights to the tree trunk because it will not look good.

How many lumens to uplight a tree with landscape lighting?

The number of lumens required to uplift a tree with landscape lighting depends on several factors. However, as a general rule of thumb, 80-120 lumens are enough to create a balanced look on the outdoor lighting as a whole.

Check colored uplights for trees

Colored uplights for trees are a great way to mix different colors and get a better overall look with the lighting project. You can mix bright and dull shades of lighting to balance out the darker areas. For instance, you can place the colored lights on the branches or the canopy of the trees to blend them.

rgb tree lights
RGB tree lights

Use palm tree ring lights to increase safety

Ensuring safe lighting while working on outdoor light projects is a must. Palm tree rings lights are one of the best options for people who want to decorate their trees without worrying about the lighting fixtures falling off. The palm tree ring lights are easier to install and have a lesser chance of collapsing in most cases. Thus, it is best to consider installing them when needed.

palm tree light ring
palm tree light ring

Buy Landscape Tree Lighting from RC Lighting

The landscape tree lighting is a great way to ensure your property looks great as a whole. However, incorporating these tree lightings is not easy. You need to consider your existing property structure, the concept of your choice, your lighting options, the kind of color temperatures you want.

RC Lighting is the leading supplier for the highest quality fixtures and lighting in China. Contact RC lighting, and a representative will be with you shortly. We will be more than happy to assist you with your tree lighting projects.

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