Garden lighting can serve various purposes, for example, creating accents in the dark or creating more safety. You need to think about light colour, protection class, sensors as well as the type and nature of the bulbs and fixtures. Tips and ideas for the optimal garden lights can be found in the following article.
Basically, you can use any bulb in the garden as long as it has the necessary IP protection class: If you want to install your fixtures under a roof or ledge, a protection class of IP44 is sufficient. If you want to place your lights directly outdoors, you need to pay attention to the IP65 classification - this way they are also protected against strong jets of water. LED bulbs that you recess into the ground or install underwater need a protection class of IP67. These are sealed so that no moisture can penetrate the housing.
You will find products with the necessary protection classes in the "LED Outdoor Lighting" category. You can see a selection of bulbs and fixtures here. If you are interested in a product, simply click on the button below.
The colour temperature of your LED garden lighting is also important - however, there is no one right light. For a cosy atmosphere, we recommend a warm white (3,000 K) or extra warm white (2,700 K) light colour: the lower the Kelvin value, the more golden the light. Cool white (4,000 K) or daylight (6,500 K) light sources, on the other hand, emit a light that shows a lot of detail but is not very cosy. It is particularly suitable for safety lighting or for illuminating areas where people are working. So before you buy, think about what purpose your garden lighting is more likely to serve.
Garden lights with motion detectors are also particularly popular. These only come on when something moves in their surroundings. This offers you more security against uninvited guests in the garden and, of course, also when crossing the green spaces. Especially for paths, this can not only be practical, but also save a lot of energy costs. You can find all products of this kind in our category "Sensor Fixtures".
Of course, there are different garden fixtures that are more suitable for different applications than others. We now present these to you:
Illuminate your flowerbeds with LEDs to set the scene for certain areas of your outdoor space in the dark. This way you can not only create a real eye-catcher, but also orientation. Ground spotlights or so-called bollard lanterns that you can insert directly into the bed are best suited for this purpose.
Many of them are solar lights: They draw their energy directly from the sun and are therefore not dependent on a power connection. This saves you 100 % of the energy costs that a conventional bulb would incur.
For trees and high bushes, we recommend LED Floodlights. You can perfectly illuminate small bushes and low hedges with LED ground floodlights. Many of them are even among our energy-saving solar lights. This means that you do not have to connect the ground spotlights to the mains, so you are particularly flexible in your choice of location and also save 100 % on electricity costs.
It also depends on how high and wide the trees and bushes are that you want to illuminate. As a rule of thumb, you can remember: If the object is rather wide and small, you should choose a higher beam angle (~60 degrees). This way you ensure that not only a small part of the respective plant is illuminated, but a large area is caught.
The situation is different for tall and narrow objects, where you need garden fixtures with a narrower beam angle (25-40 degrees) so that the light is not spread too widely and thus lost.
Enclosed you will find a table that shows you how large the light cone of a bulb is at a height of 2.5 metres and at which beam angle.
Beam angle Degree (D) Diameter of light cone (2.5 m height) Narrow 25 1,11 m Medium 40 1,82 m Wide 90 5 m Very wide 120 8,66 m
You should light paths to minimise the risk of injury in the dark. This is particularly useful on steps or ascents and descents. Of course, you can also bathe entire path sections in light. This helps you and your guests to find their way around the outdoor area and sets accents.
You can also use ground spotlights or bollard lanterns from Paulmann for this purpose - these are usually also solar lights. Just make sure that the light cannot fall into the eyes of people using the path and thus dazzle them.
If the path runs directly next to a wall, you can take advantage of this. Here you can either install weatherproof LED spotlights or even work with LED floodlights. Here you should make sure that your bulb does not protrude into the path and people could potentially bump into it.
If you have one or more walls or facades in your garden, you can illuminate them with an outdoor fixture. Especially, walls with a white and smooth surface reflect incident light well and can thus even provide indirect ambient lighting. You can make use of this effect, especially on the terrace.
When choosing fixtures, you can benefit from a wide selection. If you want to illuminate a wall, you should choose LED floodlights or floor spotlights. If, on the other hand, you want to install a fixture on a wall, LED bulkheads or wall-mounted wall luminaires are a good choice. A special eye-catcher are so-called "up & down wall luminaires", which emit not one but two cones of light - one upward, one downward. Many of these fixtures come with built-in sensors: fixtures with a twilight switch, for example, only light up when the light falls below a certain level in the respective area. This way, you don't have to worry about switching on the outdoor fixtures after a certain time.
“It does look nice, maybe we should think about installing a few of our own,” says Michael. Lisa agrees, but there is just one problem:
They don’t know much about landscape lighting.
Lisa considers this problem as Michael pulls into their dark driveway, accidentally running over the same patch of grass everyone does. “Ugh, I can never see it when we’re coming home at night. I’m going to have to reseed it again,” he grumpily grumbles.
Tired of having such a dark exterior, the couple decides to start looking into outdoor landscape lighting.
“Ok,” Lisa exclaims, “Let’s start with finding out the different types of outdoor lights there are. Then we can go from there to design or calling the best lighting contractors in Maryland.” Michael likes the sound of that. After fumbling the key into their front door they go to their computer.
It’s time to do some research on outdoor lights.
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