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By: Richard Cazzo
Website: http://www.lamps-n-lighting.com
Outdoor landscape lighting: 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 outdoor 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 for
outdoor landscape lighting .
Many of these were on display last week at the
Philadelphia Flower Show, where Blandy worked
on the outdoor landscape 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, outdoor landscape lighting
is important for safety and security, says Glen
Blandy, but it can also increase enjoyment of
your home and garden.
Outdoor landscape 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 outdoor landscape lighting 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 outdoor landscape 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
Anyone can have outdoor landscape lighting 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 outdoor landscape lighting 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 outdoor landscape
lighting fixtures 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 outdoor landscape lighting
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 outdoor landscape
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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