How Does Your Garden Glow?

With proper lighting, landscaped plants and features become stars at night.

By Jamie Durie
12 November 2004

Well it just goes to show, you can take the boy out of Vegas, but you can't take the Vegas out of the boy! For nearly a decade I was based in that glittering city in the heart of the Nevada desert, famous for its frantic nightlife and gargantuan electricity bills. There's no better place to learn about stage illumination, and I spent a lot of my time designing complex lighting rigs for theatre and cabaret shows. After Vegas, designing light for gardens feels like child's play. The principles are exactly the same: I’m still lighting a subject, still concealing the light source and still controlling the size of the beam, it’s just the “stage” is a lot smaller and the “stars” don’t do much dancing!

Where budget allows, the lighting design is one of the more enjoyable aspects of my work. It’s also something I feel very strongly about. Without lighting, you’re denying yourself the pleasure of your outdoor room at night and, for people with busy working lives, this is often their only opportunity to take advantage of the space during the week. One of the things I find myself saying to clients time and again is, you’ve paid for your domain, so why not ensure you can use It every hour of the day and night?

Don’t baulk at the prospect of playing with lighting because it looks too technical. Believe me, the rudiment are easy to grasp and it can end up being one of the most fun, creative and satisfying aspects of planning and building your outdoor room.

Here are some basic starting points to think about:

• Placement: My golden rule is the source should always be discreet. The focus should be on the garden and not the lighting fixture.

• Direction: To maximize the architectural potential of a subject, think beyond the standard in-front lighting. Consider a side-casting light, drawing attention to a particular section of a wall or a hedge. This can look amazingly effective, throwing up wonderful shadowy shapes.

• Intensity: This is all about the strength of the lights. You need to ensure the beam will travel far enough to light the subject in its entirety.

• Focus: I’m a big fan of low-voltage lighting because the gloves come with a projecting angle of anywhere between 13 degree (a directional pin-spot for small subject) and 65 degrees (to flood a hedge or tree). This gives you the opportunity to pour the focus on a particular object to the exclusion of all else.

• Colour: Have you ever wondered why 24-hour convenience stores are awash with the bright white light of fluorescent bars? This is a deliberate ploy to deter “undesirables” because stark illumination is not welcoming. The same principle goes for lighting your garden. This is why I tend to go for halogen globes or fiber-optic tubes which work well not just because of their low intensity and soft glow but also the wonderful variety of shades they offer. If you decide to go for colour, the choice can be extremely important. Consider the mood you want to create and always remember that subtlety is key. I’ve always favored blue for its mysterious, underwater feel and warm, buttery yellows seem to go well anywhere. As a rule of thumb, try to choose colours that already occur naturally in your garden.

Now with the technical stuff out of the way, it’s time to let your imagination take over. Try to block all practical considerations from your mind and look at the garden in the purest form. I tend to design a lighting plan the say way I design a garden: focus on the shapes.

Begin by thinking of your outdoor room as a canvas that you are “painting” with light. (It helps to think of the light as a tapered column of paint that starts as a slim, narrow beam and spreads into a radiant pool.) Now focus on the most prominent feature, whether it’s a plant. Sculpture or architectural detail, and carefully position the light for maximum effect. Determine from which angle the feature will be most frequently viewed and light that side, usually from the base to give the subject majesty and prestige. Work on highlighting the important details while throwing the shadowy depressions into sharp relief. This gives a wonderful sense of drama.

My advice is to first play around a bit with a flashlight testing angles and potential shapes and shadows. Notice how a soft, well-placed light can lend glamour to even the most ordinary object. A good tip is that if plants are in pots you can swap them around so different varieties of foliage can be moved into the light and featured at the times of the year when they look their best.

Trees can look especially breathtaking with the proper illumination. There is something so beautifully simple about the way light enlivens the architecture of the limbs and as it loses intensity passes on a subtle glow to the delicate foliage. For the grandest of statements, nothing looks more regal to me than an avenue of trees bathed in a rich golden glow.

As for feature plants, it’s hard to make a bad choice: strong and simple to massed and feathery, they can all look fantastic when lit correctly. Dramatic, sculptural shrubs that lend themselves to lighting are Japanese Maple, all the magnolias, sterilities and anything you find that has a unique shape with striking parallel lines or lateral branches. By day the blend in as an integral part of the green canvas, by night they become a stand out feature that springs to life and takes on a whole new personality with the help of a clever illumination.

Landscape designer, Jamie Durie is host of one of Australia's highest-rated shows, Backyard Blitz, and is author of "The Outdoor Room," from which this article is excerpted.