Show Off Your Green Fingers with Adjustable Garden Lights!

When the weather clears up for spring and summer, gardens can become some of our favourite spaces. Whether for entertaining or simply sitting out to relax on your own, consider making this space personal to you! Naturally, there are multiple ways you can bring the best out of a garden or exterior space. But, what happens after dark? Garden lighting has always been popular – however, landscaping trends are constantly changing. One of the most appealing aspects of modern garden illumination is its flexibility. At Arrow, we understand that gardens – and tastes – can change! We’re here to help you highlight your space in any way you wish. However, getting started can sometimes be tricky. Therefore, here’s a quick guide to what you can expect and some ideas you may wish to try.

Why Illuminate Your Garden?

Gardens tend to be extraordinary entertaining spaces during the warmer months. As the nights get cooler, staying outside for a few drinks becomes seriously appealing. Therefore, it immediately makes sense to highlight some of your garden’s best features with lighting. Once the sun bows down, you will need to focus on highlighting spots with artificial bulbs.

Mercifully, there are many different ways to do this! You could, for example, opt for wall lights – and we’ll cover this in more detail below. However, adjustable spike lights prove to be some of the most flexible. For example, our spectacular outdoor adjustable spotlight in aged copper is a popular choice. It’ll blend in easily with your green coverage, and you can angle it any way you wish.

You can illuminate your garden both for practicality and aesthetics. Is there a plant – or are there several – you are proud of? Are you planning to start designing a deck area for guests? What if you want to adjust the look and atmosphere of your outdoor space with a few slight adjustments?

Flexible outdoor lighting can be an incredible help in changing the look of a space. It would be best to consider using such lights to help ensure you and your guests can find accessible routes.

Ultimately, outdoor illumination should be all about personality. If you’ve put immense effort into cultivating your garden, why let it disappear in the darkness? The nights may be getting longer into the summer, but when darkness falls, your topiary and flowers vanish! It’s a key reason why so many people are getting into landscape lighting.

The best part of setting up flexible lighting for your garden lies in the fact that it’s bespoke to you. It’s good to look for ideas and inspirations online. However, flexibility lets you retain control over a unique look. With just a few spike lights – and hanging pendants – you could be enjoying an entirely new garden every night.

It’s worth noting that outdoor illumination is excellent for small and larger gardens. However, you need to space them further apart for large spaces!

Go Discreet – or Wash with Glow!

There are two main routes for outdoor lighting. You could either wash your space with a glow or go discreet. There are plenty of great reasons for either option – though, as always, there needs to be a balance. For example, too much glow can be overbearing – and too little can bring zero effect.

Let’s focus on discretion first. Using delicate spot or spike lights, you could nestle bulbs in the undergrowth. Or, you could install an up and down wall light (such as ours in aged copper) as a gentle touch. The aim here, ultimately, is to create ambience.

Ambience is not always easy to harness. It can vary wildly from space to space, and many of us are sensitive about it. However, ambient lighting needs to be enclosed carefully in your greenery. Otherwise, you’re at risk of creating too much glare – much as you might with washing your space!

Consider setting up fewer lights if you want to create a gentle ambience. Let the light travel further if you install wall lights or hanging lamps. With adjustable spike lights, try nestling them deep in grass or speed apart in a flowerbed. With enough cover, these lights shouldn’t stick out too much.

However, as mentioned, creating a glow is also worthwhile considering. It’s entirely possible to create a welcome ambience by adding many spotlights along the route. You could recess several deck lights at low wattage, for example. Or, set up low power-adjustable spike lights to guide to and from a deck or entertaining area.

While it may be tempting to go all-out on lighting when it gets dark, glare is still the enemy. It’s entirely possible to strain your eyes or get headaches from too much light. Therefore, be careful – be discerning with the types of light you choose and how you space them out.

Crucially, more flexibility means you can balance this aesthetic easier. Fancy more glow one evening? Angle your lights to add to the ambience. Alternatively, angle lower for a gentler touch or two.

Highlight the Way

One of the best ways to use flexible lighting outside is, of course, to a practical extent. You could set up flexible angle spotlights to ensure guests know where they are going. With adjustable spotlights such as our matt white model (IP65), you can highlight your decking area and pathways. That said, it’s worth balancing the practical with the aesthetic.

With this in mind, repetition is key. Symmetry is likely to be a big draw for many people (including yourself) – thus, immediately, visual appeal is achieved. However, repeating lights and their spacing is convenient, too. This helps to create a visual rhythm that ensures safety and security.

When the sun sets, direction is a must, but that doesn’t mean you have to rely on one light alone. Nothing is halting you from adding multiple spike lights along your path. However, it’s best to measure carefully to space things out evenly. Placing too many of them too close together could prove to be overpowering.

Beyond this, you could create shadows while lighting the way. Depending on how you angle your lights, you can add more depth to your pathway and greenery. Practice carefully with your lights – is there a way for you to light the way and create shadows? Try angling your light fittings at dusk.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with lighting the way through overhead lanterns and lamps. However, this can create glare and bear down on people in your garden. While practical to an extent, overhead pathway lighting can overpower very easily. Therefore, we’d suggest trying spike lights first.

What’s more, lamps and lanterns are not necessarily as flexible. With adjustable lighting, you can easily change angles at short notice. Therefore, if you and your guests have trouble navigating in the dark, you can make things easier almost instantly.

Ultimately, the way you light the route is entirely your choice! However, be sure to couple practical illumination with highlighting your garden’s best features. In fact, let’s take a closer look at how to do so in practice.

Show off Your Best Features

The best features in your garden may be utterly unique to your setup and style. For example, you may be particularly proud of your planters! You may have a tree or two that you’d like to show off – or water features might be a highlight for you. It makes sense to try and use light to help draw focus where it’s wanted.

This is, after all, the main focus and point of landscape lighting. Yes, there is practicality involved. However, drawing attention is remarkably easy. For example, you may wish to plant spotlights and spike lights on your borders to attract attention. For example, if you have large shrubs and bushes, you could install flexible lights to highlight shapes.

The best part of using flexible or adjustable lighting here lies in the growth factor. As we all know, plants and shrubs grow and change shape over time! Therefore, it makes sense to adjust for this with flexible lighting gently. You may find that the angle you beam at in summer changes by winter.

You may also want to highlight standalone planters or architectural touches. In which case, fittings such as our aged copper adjustable wall light can help. Again, we’ll cover wall lights a little more below. However, even out of the way, a flexible wall beam can do a lot for your garden.

When highlighting plants, trees, and shrubs you want to show off, focusing on height is a must. You could, for example, trail lights up larger trees to draw the eyes. Or, you could choose to beam upwards from a planted spike. You may even choose to add texture, too, with coloured bulbs and lanterns.

Crucially, it’s worth remembering to give more than one or two areas your illumination focus. We say it a lot – but balance is critical! Don’t be so quick to install adjustable lights to purely bring out a single, favourite plant. This stands to leave the rest of your garden in darkness – it’ll look pretty strange! Therefore, be sure to look at a few ideas online.

Wall Lights Can Be Wonderful

Wall lights are mighty in helping to guide focus and create an atmosphere outside. For example, Linear wall light installations can help add layers and symmetry to a space. They may not go deep into your garden, but from a practical perspective, it will help to guide guests. From the aesthetic standpoint, it’s a great way to highlight your perimeter and bring out more personality.

However, do consider installations such as adjustable wall lights. These units will not only help to light the way, but you can use them to highlight standing plants. Depending on power and position, you can also use them to beam into your garden gently. They will also work fantastically as part of an entertaining zone or decking area.

Flexible models such as our adjustable outdoor light in matt white work great for facades, patios, etc. The gentle beam you can expect from LED is effective yet never overpowering. It’s ideal for bringing out silhouettes, curves, and corners alike. Beyond this, these wall lights are perfect for smaller outdoor areas and larger or longer facades.

Wall lights also play a significant part in helping you to create zones. For example, you could set up a feature wall to the far end of a garden. You can then effectively employ scattered spotlights and spike lights to draw on features elsewhere in your garden.

Let’s also consider how vital wall lights can be for tasks. While many of us associate task lighting with indoor spaces, wall lights outdoor can help with various jobs. If you are gardening after dark or are hosting friends, an adjustable beam can be handy.

You can also use carefully placed lights on your wall to create a vertical garden! Why not let ivy or other climbing plants scale your fencing or walls and install spotlights? You could also nestle in adjustable wall lighting to sneak through the undergrowth. Regardless, you don’t have to keep adjustable lights dotted idly around the garden!

Conclusion

Adjustable lighting can bring more than just a touch of class to your outdoor space. With the ability to adjust your illumination, you’ll be able to change the look every night. You can bring focus to your favourite plants and show off architectural features. You’ll also be able to guide the way for visitors, family, and friends.

Regardless of why you’d like to illuminate your garden, do so with personality. Take a look at a few ideas online and invest in some of the best flexible fittings at Arrow Electrical. We strive to bring you amazing value and choice – time to make the most of your garden, day and night!