14 Commercial Landscape Lighting Ideas

Have you wanted to expand the enjoyment of your beautiful landscaping or architecture beyond daylight hours? Perhaps you want to attract customers in the evening hours. Maybe it’s just a case of providing a little more light for safety and security. In any of these situations, our 14 commercial landscape lighting ideas can help you make a great impression after dark.

What Type of Lighting Do You Need?

The first thing to consider when planning landscape lighting is what exactly you want to achieve. Are there specific landscape areas or architectural details that you want to highlight? Is there an entire patio or pool area that would benefit from a warm glow? Will the lights themselves be a decorative attraction? Or is it simply a matter of providing a well-lit walkway or entrance for safety and security? 

Whatever the goal, there is a landscape lighting solution that will help you achieve it. Following are some of the common types of commercial landscape lighting.

Accent Lighting

As the name suggests, accent lighting is used to highlight or accentuate certain features of your property. Trees, shrubs, fountains and sculptures are common landscape details that benefit from accent lighting.

Decorative Lighting

With decorative lighting, it’s the lights themselves that become a point of interest. They can be used year round or added to create an inviting ambience for a special event. Wall lanterns are a common style of permanent fixture, while string lights or hanging lanterns can be either permanent or temporary.

Path Lighting

Lighting the edges of pathways can provide a decorative flair as well as added safety. Path lighting can really accentuate beautiful stone or brick walkways in the evening. They also provide the light for visitors to safely walk by.

Floodlighting

Floodlighting also serves dual purposes by lighting up an area so that visitors can easily see where they’re going while at the same time it can be directed towards points of interest. Floodlights are typically mounted high so that they illuminate a large area. 

Security Lighting

Security lighting is all about safety and security. This type of lighting is meant to brightly illuminate an area to deter crime and provide good visibility for security personnel and cameras. Typically not very decorative, it does have its place in the commercial landscape by providing visitors with a sense of safety. Commercial landscape lighting is a great tool for this.

14 Landscape Lighting Ideas

• In-ground garden lighting: In-ground lights placed beneath plants and shrubs are inconspicuous, but can provide brilliant evening illumination of highlights in your landscaping.
• Planting beds: Beds of flowers can also be brightened up after dark by scattered lights that rise a few inches above the ground.
• Focal point lighting: Highlights of your landscape such as fountains or sculptures shouldn’t only be visible during the daytime. Accent lights such as spotlights or bullet lights can make them even more eye-catching in the evening. Lighting from multiple directions will help to eliminate unwanted shadows that detract from the appearance.

Consider Highlight Treescapes

• Tree spot lighting: Similar to in-ground lights, tree lights also shine up, but are much brighter and illuminate the canopy of trees. They’re a fantastic way to draw attention to stately trees. Floodlights can be used for larger trees, while well lights work well for smaller ones.
• Tree string lighting: Trees can also be highlighted by strings of bulbs throughout the foliage or around the trunk. Moonlighting by placing soft lights high up in trees can turn a large tree into a nighttime showpiece.
• Colored lighting: The last decade has seen an explosion of colors due to the versatility of LED lighting. Lights that incorporate easy color change options are an exciting example. A simple press of a remote button allows you to make a colorful statement.

Create Vignettes With Lighting

• Bistro or cafe lighting: String lights, often called bistro lights, are a popular way to add an attractive glow to patio and seating areas. A wide range of color and brightness choices are available to set just the right mood.
• Wall lighting: Uplights using either a narrow beam bullet light or a more diffuse wash light can make a wall into an impressive part of your landscape after dark. In particular, wall lighting can make an inviting statement when viewed from the street.

More Landscape Lighting Ideas

• Building lighting: Bullet or wash lights highlighting interesting details or corners of a building can add a nice effect and showcase your architecture. 
• Entrance lighting: The right lighting can make an entrance inviting and clearly denote its location. A combination of overhead lighting and strategically placed spots or pathway lights can strike the right balance between safety and aesthetics.
• Pathway lighting: Lighting up walkways and paths is another area where form meets function. The right lights provide visitors with enough light to walk safely while casting an attractive glow. Low post lights can illuminate a walkway while recessed lights will clearly mark the edges of the path.
• Step lighting: Providing a safe level of lighting is even more important for outdoor steps and stairs. Recessed lights on the face of stairs can illuminate the tread while downlighting on railings can brighten the entire stairway. Lights should be bright enough and placed so that they do not create shadows that make stair edges difficult to see.

Keep Things Secure + Utilize Tech

• Security lighting: Some landscape lighting is all about function. Security lighting is focused on providing plenty of light to deter crime. While not necessarily attractive in an aesthetic sense, good security is inviting to visitors by letting them feel more comfortable with their surroundings.
• Motion sensors: Motion sensors can be added to security lights so that they only come on when movement is detected. Areas can be brightly lit only when necessary.

Making your landscape more attractive at night can encourage visitors to stop by and spend more time in the evening. Any or all of the 14 commercial landscape lighting ideas that we have mentioned can be used in just about any landscape design. It’s important to find the right combination that fits into a cohesive design, though. Give us a call to see how we can bring your landscape to life after dark.