How to set a mood after dark with bespoke garden lighting

Realestate.com.au interviewed Light on Landscape Founder and Design Director Amander Flaherty on the importance of garden lighting and how understanding its qualities can help draw attention to colour, texture and movement.

Viewpoints are everything – and on a cold winter’s night, if you’ve got your window furnishings open – there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to still feel the magic of your garden, just by looking out.

Outdoor lighting specialist Amander Flaherty says anyone considering a garden lighting plan needs to start with the conception from inside their home, “because you really want to bring the outside in”.

“It’s really important to stand in the house and see what you want to focus on when you look out,” Amander says. “Then walk through the house with your architect or designer to formulate a plan.”

Photo courtesy https://www.realestate.com.au/

Amander has spent the last two decades bringing light into landscape design. Creating custom garden illuminations is something that’s very close to her heart.

She likes to work with architects, designers and landscapers from the beginning of a renovation or building project. Logistically, it makes sense for cabling and switching to occur in the right places, but from a design perspective it’s also a good idea to plan lighting alongside garden features, planting and preferred outlook from individual rooms.

“Lighting can extenuate things in the garden, such as the movement of water, textures, shapes and silhouetting,” Amander says.

Photo courtesy https://www.realestate.com.au/

In the Toorak home [pictured] Amander worked heavily with a concept called ‘moon lighting’.

“It’s lighting coming from the top that shines down on the landscape. It brings more of a personalised feel to the garden,” Amander says. “It goes beyond your eye level – it’s not meant to be a glare source or super strong; rather, it gives the eye something soft and nice to follow.”

Whether you opt for a ‘moon lighting’ scheme or want to work more with pool lighting or lanterns, Amander says there’s a custom solution waiting to enhance every garden – but she says it must be addressed from the outset of the landscape planning.

For example, if trees are planted in infancy, you’ll need to plan for how they will look in maturity – will the lighting cater to that eventual growth? “[Gardens] are an organic thing, and lighting has to be organic with it,” she explains.

“I know people like the one size fits all approach – but it’s not always the case: There is a creative process and it needs to be addressed if you want a great result.”


This article has been published on Realestate.com.au