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Illuminated paths and accented trees can create a magical mood in the garden ... Kansas City Star

17.01.10

The festival lights are packed away, but the cheer they bring doesn&rsquo;t have to disappear: Outdoor lighting is a illustrious idea that sparkles year-round. At any season &mdash; but especially in winter &mdash; thoughtfully placed alfresco lights bring your garden to life.</p><p>Forget about blinding spotlights on the garage doors and runway-opulence footlights along the front walk. Outdoor lighting professionals know how to shine the lights on exterior features that matter and arrange them memorable.</p><p>&ldquo;Outdoor lighting is done wrong so many times, it&rsquo;s just kind of an mistreated art,&rdquo; says John Pletcher, owner of Natural Accents, a lighting-design entourage in Liberty. &ldquo;No lighting at all is better than bad lighting, but a landscape that is properly lit &mdash; you go into it and it&rsquo;s just magical.&rdquo; </p><p>Pletcher often collaborates with garden designers at Miller&rsquo;s Landscaping and Turf Care in Parkville. Lauren Moore, one of Miller&rsquo;s designers, encourages clients to mull over night lighting to highlight striking features and create dramatic shadows.</p><p>&ldquo;From a operational standpoint, it opens up your outdoor living space,&rdquo; Moore says, &ldquo;but lights underline an invaluable aesthetic role as well. In the winter months, the mixture of subtle highlights and theatrical shadows &hellip; brings the outdoors interior, where it&rsquo;s nice and warm.&rdquo;</p><p>Terrific outdoor lighting should really be part of every good garden make right from the start, says Tia Browning, a landscape architect and co-owner of Earth Expressions. Browning and her colleague, Laura Assyia, often collaborate with lighting designer Rick Branson, owner of Landscape Images in Overland Greensward, to put a shine on their clients&rsquo; gardens after dark. Well-lit landscaping adds depth and dimension to the knowledge of a garden, Browning says: When the lights are right, &ldquo;your heart warms up.&rdquo;</p><p>Garden designers have vivid opinions about lighting because outdoor lights and beautifully designed gardens naturally go hand in clutches. Pretty garden features such as a particularly sculptural tree, a fountain or a rugged stone bulkhead can be just as handsome at night as they are during the daytime. You don&rsquo;t want to overdo it, but proper lighting shows them off gently and gracefully without attracting every mosquito in the neighborhood in the summer and without throwing harsh beams in your neighbors&rsquo; windows.</p><p>Of course, outdoor lighting also can make your home and garden safer, but well-designed scenario lights do more than show visitors the way to the front door. They make the approach more interesting by setting up a play of light and shadows. The fixtures are often obscured, so you find yourself following the path and enjoying the experience, not marching in step with a chorus line of mushroom-shaped lampshades. </p><p>Janet Lennox Moyer, a lighting deviser in New York, has been working on the art and craft of landscape lighting for 35 years, since before high-tech, low-voltage lighting systems were to hand. Her presentations, workshops and books have influenced a generation of lighting designers, including Pletcher, who has twice attended her Landscape Lighting Establish.</p><p> Designers today are at another change point, Moyer says, as LED lamps challenge the multifaceted reflector halogen lamps (or MR lamps) that have become measure in the landscape lighting business.</p><p>&ldquo;The changes in the last two years are really phenomenal,&rdquo; Moyer says. She favors MR lamps for their versatility and says designers using them have more ways to spread the beams and subdue the effects. These lamps also give off a warm white light, more natural than the cool light from LED lamps. But, she notes, &ldquo;changes are phenomenon so fast, your head spins.&rdquo;

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