A wooded backyard looks best when you light only a few things well, canopy moonlighting, a couple of uplit specimen trees, and low path lighting, and let the darkness between them do the rest.
Wooded lots have a romance to them that makes people want to move there and spend time. That’s why it’s always a little hard to say goodbye to the natural landscape after dark.
If you live in a wooded yard and you want to add lighting, there is a certain instinct a lot of people feel: to add light everywhere. This is best avoided, though, because flooding trees with light flattens them into a bright, featureless backdrop. It’s the same reason why overlit hotel parking lots have such a hard-to-place odd feeling about them.
The real trick is to think in terms of light and shadow, because it’s the contrast that does the work by giving the yard greater depth.
Moonlighting is one of the great ways to illuminate a canopied yard. You can mount fixtures high in the canopy and push light downward through the branches. It may be installed by people, but it feels like nature. There’s also a delightful variability built in, as the bare branches of a Northern Ohio winter throw a very different pattern than a full summer canopy. From there, it takes very little to properly light a yard. All that is needed at this point is to light a tree from the base for a focal point and add a few low path lights to keep walking routes safe (and beautiful).
Knowing which trees to light and how much darkness to leave around them can be tricky, though. It’s here that hands-on judgment and experience go a long way, and for that you can always schedule a free consultation with Outdoor Lighting Perspectives. A COLT-certified technician will come by after dark with temporary fixtures and give you a real-life demonstration of what’s possible on your property.