Choose landscape lights that create specific effects.

When the sun sets, yards, walks and patios across America begin to light up with the glow of landscaping lights. But illuminating your yard isn't as simple as screwing a few floodlights to the side of the house and flipping a switch. Your lighting choices should be specific to the design of your outdoor spaces, with specialty hardware to light trees, flowerbeds, paths, and any other landscape elements you want to show off.

Los Angeles native Paul Lewis is the owner of Paul A. Lewis & Associates Landscape Architecture, a company that designs and creates customs landscapes for residential, commercial, retail, entertainment, recreational, and educational facility projects. Here he offers some expert solutions for lighting your outdoor areas:

• What are you lighting for?
  Ask yourself what you want your outdoor lights to do. Are you lighting for entertainment value or do you want to highlight your yard and try to give it a little bit more depth at night?
  
• Leave dramatic shadows.
  In Lewis' experience, less is more. Don't over light by trying to illuminate every surface. You'll want to leave some shadows, as they work nicely to define lighted areas.
  
• Back light trees.
  You may want to experiment with back lighting. Lighting trees in the background of a forest area creates silhouettes in the foreground. Using upward pointed lights to illuminate a hedge behind a shrub or tree will produce the same effect.
  
• Conceal light sources.
  Always conceal the light source with a glare guard or by tucking it in behind a shrub, wall, or rock. That way, you won't see where the light originates.
  
• Choose from many options.
  There are lots of lighting options out there, and each will create a unique effect and mood. Take advantage of the variety of beam angles, frosted lenses, and mounts that are available.