Garden and path lighting

The garden is where lighting design earns its keep. Planting changes with the seasons, paths bend out of sight, and the darkness between lit moments matters as much as the light. We design garden and path lighting for residential properties on the Peninsula and in the South Bay, and we document it so an installer can build it exactly.

Path lighting is the part of the trade most often done badly, because it looks simple. A row of identical fixtures at identical spacing reads as an airport runway, and it flattens a garden rather than revealing it. A path needs enough light to walk with confidence and no more. The rest of the work is composition: which planting beds hold light, which specimen plants get their own fixture, where the eye is allowed to rest in the dark.

Paths and steps

We design paths with pools of light rather than continuous brightness, spaced so the walk is legible without being lit like a corridor. Steps get their own treatment, low and shielded, because a shadow across a tread at night is a real hazard and a glare source at eye level is worse. Our reasoning on spacing, fixture height, and glare is written out in the guide to lighting a garden path.

Planting and trees

Planting plans are where we like to start. Grasses, layered shrub beds, and mature trees each take light differently, and the plan tells us what will be there in five years, not just at install. Native gardens deserve particular care. Oaks, manzanita, and toyon have strong branch structure that carries uplight and moonlight beautifully, and they tolerate very little disturbance at their roots, which constrains where fixtures and wire can go. That material is covered in uplighting oaks and California natives.

Terraces and outdoor rooms

Dining terraces, seating areas, and pool surrounds are rooms, and we light them as rooms: a low ambient layer, light on the table or the counter where the work happens, and something for the eye beyond the edge of the terrace so the space does not end at a black wall. Scenes matter here. An evening on the terrace and a quiet night with everything nearly off are different settings, and the design should name them. We write about this in lighting scenes outdoors.

What you receive

• A garden lighting plan locating every fixture on your base drawing
• A fixture schedule with beam spreads, lamping, and color temperature
• Aiming and mounting notes for trees, steps, and water
• Scene descriptions for the property's zones, controls-agnostic
• A night walkthrough after installation, with final aiming adjustments

Garden and path work is usually part of a whole-property design. That broader service is described under landscape lighting design.