Designing nighttime lighting for the garden

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Nighttime lighting in a garden is absolutely magical. I have Malibu® lights, but I'm sure any type of low voltage system will be fine. I have added to my system over the years, and not to sound like a commercial for Malibu®, I find it easy to find the stuff I need at Home Depot. Now I sound like a commercial for Home Depot!

Anyway, The Tropical Paradise has two 100-watt transformers to cover the area. One line wraps around the southern edge of the garden, one goes around the north. The lights are 20-watt spotlights and 11-watt path lights. The trick is to get as much "uplighting" as possible, which looks great on palm trees, without creating glare. A 20-watt spotlight blasting into your eyes at night is not pleasant!

Here on this corner (pictured), I have extended the garden several feet, but the original light was too close to the wall, which left this corner in the dark. I will be extending the line tomorrow to include the added distance of the garden, and I want to do another spotlight there. But I have a challenge.

Here on this corner, the spotlight would need to point back toward the wall. If even a little bit of the light glares towards the patio, it will be a failure, so I will have to be sure to angle it in such a way that it won't. Just like when I started designing the system twenty years ago, I am testing with a flashlight.

Tomorrow I will splice in several new feet of wire, bury it, and place the spotlight. This area should look a whole lot better tomorrow night!

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