String Lighting
String lighting is soft, low-voltage accent lighting used to evoke a warm, intimate ambiance that’s especially desirable for entertaining. Hang string lights wherever the activity is—be it on the eaves of the home to brighten an outdoor kitchen or from the posts of an outdoor pavilion or gazebo to illuminate patio furniture.
LED strings for outdoor use are available in various lengths. Simple white “fairy lights” are easily accommodated, but there's a wide range of styles and colors. Plug the transformer into the mains inside a garage or shed with power. Use a solar-powered set to dress potted topiary. Use colorful and novelty string lights to brighten up a plain foliage backdrop or liven up a bare pergola.
Decorative mobile lights
Colored-glass tea-light holders look good day or night. Hang from shepherd's crook hangers and use to complement the colors in your borders.
Party time
Bright paper lanterns create a party atmosphere on a still summer's evening. Hang at different heights from a pergola or an overhanging branch.
Path Lighting
Path lighting is soft to moderately bright safety and landscape lighting designed to help you navigate walkways while attractively highlighting them. Install it on the ground along both sides of main walkways from the back door to your fence door, along stepping stones from the main walkway to a backyard feature like a fountain, and/or around flower beds to emphasize their contours.
You may also use candles. Set tea lights in glasses half-filled with sand along pathways, and the edges of patios and decks. The sand stabilizes the candle and absorbs its heat. Terracotta pots with chunky church candles also work well.
Room at night
This secluded terrace is lit for both aesthetic and practical purposes, but the light levels are low and arranged to avoid glare, giving the space a restful feel. LED uplighters graze the walls with a gentle glow, illuminating foliage and creating soft shadows. Changes in level are lit for safety, but candles and lanterns are arranged purely to enhance ambience. Never leave naked flames unattended.
Lanterns
Lanterns offer soft, low-voltage accent lighting for a small expanse of an outdoor wall to play up architectural details or decor. They’re often installed in the vicinity of the back door to highlight a transom window, arch, or ornate wreath atop it. Most lanterns are semi-flush mount, consisting of a glass-and-metal exterior attached to an arm affixed to a plate on the wall. However, battery-powered tabletop lanterns bring that same visual interest to eye level while softly illuminating elements that you might reach for when outside entertaining: bowls of snacks, beverages, board games, and more. Choose lanterns with a translucent as opposed to a clear glass covering to provide diffuse, glare-free nighttime lighting that doesn’t distract from other backyard light fixtures.
Deck Lighting
Deck lighting is standard-voltage, moderate- to high-intensity lighting designed to help folks get up, down, and across the deck by night, avoiding tripping hazards and visual clutter, and also accentuate nearby garden features. It’s installed as a series of LED lights recessed into grooves in the surface, so that you can safely walk over them, never even feeling them underfoot. Deck lights also belong around the perimeter of the deck surface, in between the individual steps of stairs, and/or along deck stair railings.
