Wonderful decorative lighting ideas for gardens, patios and water features, to add a touch of beauty to your outdoor living space.

Designing your own outdoor decorative lighting system is a project you’ll really enjoy, and a with a little planning, you’ll achieve a very effective result. There’s a wide range of beautiful decorative lighting fixtures to choose from, specially designed for highlighting gardens, patios and water features. There are designs to suit every architectural and outdoor decor style, whether contemporary or traditional. The lighting fixtures work an a low voltage system, so they’re very safe to use in any outdoor space, including gardens, patios and water features.

Decorative lighting design basics.

If you have a few ideas, but you’re not sure how well they’re going to work, place the lighting fixtures around the garden or patio and switch them on so you can see how they’re going to look before you install them permanently.

Using lights to accent attractive features of the garden creates a magical effect at night. If you have some particularly attractive plants or garden art, you could highlight them with a small spotlight. You could also position a number of small, subtle accent lights around the patio or garden for a gentle, glowing moonlight effect. If you have water features in the garden, there are specially designed lighting fixtures which can be safely used in and around them.

The key to good decorative lighting design is that the effect should be subtle, relaxing to look at, and evenly spread around the space. Avoid harsh, intense, direct light, and make sure the light sources within the actual fixtures aren’t directly visible. Try to avoid creating “hot spots”. These may be areas where the light is falling directly on a hard reflective surface and producing glare, or spots where the glow from several fixtures is overlapping to form an area of light which is much more intense than those around it.