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By: Richard Cazzo
Website: http://www.lamps-n-lighting.com
When Glen Blandy looks at a house and garden
at night, he sees it as a scene on canvas just
waiting for an artist to paint it, with light.
Which isn't surprising, since this landscape lighting
expert started out as a high school art teacher
about 30 years ago.
His medium may have changed, but Blandy still
sounds like an artist as he talks about negative
and positive space, perspective, highlighting,
shadowing and all the other effects that create
what he describes as a dynamic nightscape.
Many of these were on display last week at the
Philadelphia Flower Show, where Blandy worked
on the lighting for Paths to Paradise, an exhibit
by Stoney Bank Nurseries in Glen Mills, Delaware
County, Pa., that won best-of-show honors for
nursery owner Jack Blandy, who is Glen's older
brother.
On a basic level, lighting is important for safety
and security, says Glen Blandy, but it can also
increase enjoyment of your home and garden.
Lighting creates an inviting mood, he says, that
can entice you into the garden even if you don't
get home from work until after dark.
A lot of people think it's just for the summer,
but this is a beautiful idea year-round. Imagine
waking up to a snowstorm, or an ice storm, and
seeing the lights glistening off limbs or trees
-- it just can't be described. It's one of the
most beautiful sights you'd see in your life.
Silhouette lighting is achieved by illuminating
a wall behind plantings, so that at night the
dark outline of a plant is silhouetted against
the warmly lit wall. And grazing is the effect
you get when a light just grazes the surface of
a structure, such as a wall, to accentuate texture.
Anyone can have lights in the garden, Blandy
says. His company has installed them at properties
ranging from a small courtyard garden in Philadelphia,
where 10 to 12 lights, a transformer and installation
might cost $2,000 to $2,500, to a large suburban
estate, where hundreds of lights and many transformers
could cost $70,000.
There are kits for as little as $100 that do-it-yourselfers
can buy from places such as Home Depot.
Whether you hire someone or do it yourself, there's
more to it than sticking a few lights into the
garden. People make the mistake of having a bright
post light, thinking they are lighting the walkway,
Blandy says. But usually that light is at eye
level, and it blinds you so that it's harder to
see the path because of the glare.
More effective are path lights, he says. The traditional
mushroom variety, which can be very decorative,
throws light down onto a path; but small half-moon
lights are more effective for steps, as they throw
light across the surface.
Less is more when it comes to lighting the exterior
of your house. You go by some homes and they're
lit up like a prison or something, Blandy says.
You don't want to light your house evenly across
the front, because that flattens it. Highlight
specific areas, such as a chimney, and leave some
of it dark.
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