Landscape Lighting near you

Good landscape lighting starts with what you want to see from inside and from the places you sit. The designer or installer chooses a few focal points, such as a specimen tree, a wall or a water feature, then adds softer light along paths and at the edges so the eye travels through the yard instead of stopping at one bright spot. Leaving some areas dark is part of the design: contrast creates depth, and a garden lit evenly from end to end looks flat.

Many installers set fixtures out temporarily and walk the yard with you after dark before any cable is buried, adjusting angles, beam spreads and brightness on the spot. Plan for growth as well, since a young tree's uplight will need to move back as the canopy widens and a shrub can swallow a path light within a few seasons. Ask for a simple plan of the fixture locations, cable routes and transformer, which helps anyone who digs in the garden later.

The transformer is the heart of a low-voltage system. ESA notes that low-voltage lighting uses very little electricity but requires a special isolating transformer, which helps prevent shock and short circuits. It should be rated for outdoor use, mounted where snow, sprinklers and lawn equipment won't reach it, and sized for the total load of the fixtures with capacity to spare for additions. Many models include a photocell or an astronomical timer, so the garden comes on at dusk without a separate control.

Low voltage loses strength over distance, so fixtures at the end of a long or undersized run can look dimmer than those near the transformer. Installers manage this by dividing the yard into several runs, feeding cable from a central point or using a transformer with more than one output. Fixtures with solid metal or composite housings and sealed LED lamps stand up better to frost and string trimmers than lightweight kits, and waterproof connectors keep moisture out of every splice.

Low voltage suits most gardens: the cable can be moved when beds change, the fixtures are small, and the transformer keeps household voltage out of the planting beds. Line-voltage fixtures on a buried household circuit make sense for long distances, powerful lights on tall trees, or fixtures at a gate or an outbuilding far from the house, where a low-voltage run would lose too much. That route calls for cable or conduit buried as the electrical code requires and inspected before the trench is closed, so it's an electrician's project from start to finish.

Solar stake lights are the easy alternative, with no cable at all, but they're dimmer, harder to aim and less dependable through short, snowy winter days, when a panel covered in snow can't charge. They work best as accents in sunny spots rather than as the backbone of a design.

A low-voltage transformer usually plugs into an outdoor receptacle, and that receptacle is where the regulated work lies. ESA states that all 120-volt, 15- and 20-amp receptacles in your backyard must be protected by a Class A GFCI, and that an outlet exposed to rain or snow needs a cover plate marked Extra Duty. Adding that outlet, hardwiring a transformer or burying a line-voltage circuit is electrical work: in Ontario, a Licensed Electrical Contractor files a notification with ESA; in Quebec, a contractor licensed through the CMEQ does it; in British Columbia, the permit comes from Technical Safety BC or the local government. Ask whether the low-voltage portion needs its own paperwork where you live.

Digging comes with its own rule. Even the shallow slits used for low-voltage cable can reach a gas service or a buried power or communications line, and ESA tells homeowners to contact Ontario One Call before anyone digs. Ontario One Call says locates are free, required by law and must be requested at least 5 business days before digging, and that private lines, including landscape lighting and feeds to sheds, are not covered and need a private locator. In Quebec, the Régie du bâtiment du Québec directs requests to Info-Excavation.

Uplights point at the sky by design, which makes aiming and shielding more important in a garden than almost anywhere else. A beam that overshoots a tree's canopy lights the sky rather than the branches, a bare lamp visible from the neighbour's deck is glare, and a wall-washer aimed across the lot line can end up in someone's bedroom. Some municipalities regulate this: Calgary's Community Standards Bylaw says you can't let outdoor lights shine directly into your neighbour's home, and the City suggests shaded or cut-off fixtures that direct light downward, diffusing lenses and lower output where light spills past the property.

In practice, that means hooded or louvred fixtures, glare guards on uplights near property lines, narrow beams that stay within the tree, and a timer that turns decorative lighting off late in the evening. A walk around the yard and along the sidewalk after installation shows where light escapes before it becomes a complaint.