How to Design Outdoor Lights
And affordably make an actually awesome home and yard (that’s also safe for wildlife)
How light is your sky? New Mexico, left, protects its night skies. The Catskills, where my subscriber lives, has one of the darkest skies in the Northeast. (Source: Light Pollution Map)
Dear Avant Gardener, I'm wondering if you have any lighting design guidance for our new country home. Specifically, I'd like to add lighting to our outdoor entertaining areas and along some paths. Our driveway has a steep edge on one side and we've had issues with cars falling into the ditch, so we also need lighting for safety. Additionally, we have some beautifully sculptural trees we'd like to draw attention to with up-lighting. How do I think about where the lights go from a design perspective, and what types of lights do you recommend so we don't interfere with the local wildlife? — Jonathan, Catskills, NY
Sorry, but any artificial light at night interferes with local wildlife, especially insects. In fact, half of all insects evolved to take advantage of darkness and are impaired by artificial light at night (see “Why?”). And as ecologist E.O. Wilson famously said, “Insects are the little things that run the world.” Populations of these tiny animals have recently plummeted 40 percent in a decade, so managing ecological landscapes often starts with doing right by insects.
According to Harvard entomologist Dr. Avalon Owens, minimizing the amount of artificial light we contribute to the night is especially important in remote, rural areas like yours, where the night skies are otherwise dark.
We’re not talking about … downtown Boston, kind of a lost cause in terms of light pollution, but vacation homes, beautiful forest retreats in Maine and Pennsylvania. These are some of the worst offenders in my mind because it’s some of the only light around and it’s pure luxury. — Dr. Avalon Owens on Bug Banter
Big sky country leadership
For stylish and responsible lighting advice, I spoke with Santa Fe-based interior designer Jonathan Berger. New Mexicans have been at the forefront of protecting night skies for more than two decades.
In 1999, New Mexico enacted the Night Sky Protection Act; its purpose is to regulate outdoor night lighting fixtures to preserve and enhance the state’s dark sky while promoting safety, conserving energy and preserving the environment for astronomy. One of the first of its kind in the US, … [t]he act requires that outdoor lighting be fitted with shielding that directs light downward, rather than upward or laterally. — Santa Fe Conservation Trust
“Any light should have a purpose,” Berger told me. He advises using the minimum amount of light necessary for each purpose and in a warm tone — 3,000 Kelvins or less. Warm lights are generally better for nocturnal animals. Sadly, fireflies are the exception.
[A]mber or orange light is better than green light, which is better than blue light, which is better than UV light, which is the most attractive. … [But] for fireflies, specifically, yellow light is quite bad because it looks just like a firefly, green or yellow. — Dr. Avalon Owens on Bug Banter
Lighting outdoor entertaining areas
Berger lights outdoor entertaining areas as he does rooms: “Areas of light and shadow make for a calming space,” Berger says. “The contrast intrigues, moving the eye around. And objects — think sculpture — comes alive with shadows.”
Berger illuminates surfaces and eliminates or minimizes unflattering (and wasteful) overhead lighting. At his own adobe home, Berger uses inexpensive battery-powered candles; one hangs over the dinner table on his portale (covered patio) in an antique, bronze Japanese lantern. You can create a similar effect with a variety of lantern styles available online.
For a more modern look on table surfaces, Berger likes the rechargeable Zafferano Poldina Pro Mini, which illuminates food on the table surface and reflects flattering light upward toward faces. (You can find cheaper versions on Amazon, but beware of junk that will soon go to landfill.)
Left, battery-operated outdoor candles in lanterns from West Elm; right, Poldina Pro Mini rechargeable outdoor table light
For ambiance, Berger adds a glimmer of light leading into the distance with flickering, battery-powered tea lights in three smaller cast-iron lanterns hung in trees along the path and stairs to his Japanese garden “give the suggestion of the space beyond.” He explains, “It’s like classic English garden design, which is tame in the foreground and more rustic in the distance. You want to lead the eye into the beauty of the nighttime.”
One or two spotlights — not too bright, please — on sculptures or trees can also add to the ambiance. You can find solar and wired versions online; just make sure you can turn them off when not outdoors.
Lighting outdoor rooms
For general lighting of larger areas when entertaining, Berger suggests placing lights on the ground — but only enough so people can see where they’re going. His recommendations range from inexpensive battery-operated tea lights placed in white paper bags, like New Mexican “luminaria,” to Noguchi’s akari light sculptures.
For everyday lighting of outdoor seating areas, choose lights that can withstand the elements and turn on easily. For example, string lights offer an inexpensive overall lighting solution that turns on easily and can be put on a dimmer system. We’ve found it best to attach guide wires for string lights to the house and other fixed structures; free-standing metal supports are not strong enough. Aim to provide just enough light so you can see your way around and no more. And, of course, turn off all these lights when you go inside.
There are no residual effects of light pollution. So, when you turn out a light, the problem goes away instantly. And it saves money to do so. — Dr. Avalon Owens on Bug Banter
Path lighting
To illuminate paths for everyday use, choose motion-activated lights pointed downward from about knee-level. The sensors in these lights usually have a wide range, allowing you to space them 10 feet or so apart. If you have enough sunlight, solar motion-activated lights work well and allow you to avoid expensive wiring; choose ones you can switch to “ON” when you expect guests. Avoid solar lights that automatically go on at dusk and stay on all night.
Unfortunately, most motion-activated path lights emit low light when not triggered. Here are two options that don’t:
We mount inexpensive plastic solar lights about 18” from the ground at regular intervals along the way from our driveway to our door. They’re not attractive, but they are inconspicuous. (You can find battery-powered ones if you don’t have enough sunlight for solar.)
If you don’t have convenient surfaces on which to mount lights and are handy, you can make the DIY wood path lights below following instructions from Family Handyman. (They require solar deck lights.)
Two DIY path light solutions, both using motion-activated solar lights (photo: left, Heather Evans; right, Family Handyman)
Driveway
As for your dangerous driveway, you need something headlights can pick up, not lights. An attractive option would be strategically placed boulders, if you have room. If not, motion-activated path lights would be an option. But, frankly, your driveway will probably need to be plowed in winter, so why not just do what most rural residents do and use reflective snow stakes?
Welcome to the country!
— The Avant Gardener
Why, How, Wow!
Why?
Fireflies and moths come to mind when we think of insects at night, but — as I mentioned above — about half of all insects are nocturnal. These include bees, spiders, dung beetles, and so on. Artificial light at night is especially harmful because nocturnal insects not previously had to evolve adaptations to it. For that reason, artificial light at night may be even more harmful to them than insecticides or global warming.
For all of evolutionary history the night has been totally dark and so what we’re doing is unprecedented. … [C]limate change is happening much more rapidly than it ever has before, but temperature fluctuations are within the realm of an insect’s life. They have the ability to adapt to a certain extent. And even pesticides, you know, a lot of them are based on plant defenses or other chemicals that insects have evolved to cope with to varying degrees. … [B]ut there has never been a street light. — Dr. Avalon Owens on Bug Banter
In fact, competition has gotten greater as more animals are becoming nocturnal, for example to adapt to global warming. Even some species of firefly, those that thrive in the dusk, are thriving.
The most common firefly in the US, Photinus pyralis, is also pretty dusk active, active around sunset, and really like suburban lawns. You’ll even see them flying around Central Park in New York City. … Most people don’t even know that there’s more than one species and so they think everything’s fine, but there are all of these rare, more delicate nocturnal species that are probably being pushed out. … When you see an abundance of one [species] that’s not necessarily a good thing because we’re losing biodiversity. — Dr. Avalon Owens on Bug Banter
Species that live in remote areas like the Catskill Mountains are at greatest risk. In her research, Owens identified why: Females stop flashing when there is light, so males are unable to find them.
And it turned out in the lab and in the field that although the males would flash less when there was a light overhead, the females would go almost totally dark. … And so they are really giving us a false impression of how bad it is. Because if the males keep flashing, but the females go dark, you might look at that spot and say, probably the fireflies will be OK. But next year you’re not going to see any because the females just sort of dipped out. — Dr. Avalon Owens on Bug Banter
How
It turns out, I need more blinds. Do you?
Pete and I have motion detectors galore — Dr. Owen’s No. 1 solution for minimizing artificial light at night. But we don’t have curtains, her No. 2 solution, in the living areas where we spend the evenings in our rural Florida fish camp.
Lights from houses go out into the environment, especially in some of the semi-natural areas where I do fieldwork. They have a very big impact. — Dr. Avalon Owens on Bug Banter
I am not a fan of (read: hate) curtains, per se. I’ve been using Venetian blinds to provide privacy and to control light ever since Jonathan Berger told me 20 years ago that famed interior designer Albert Hadley (1920 - 2012) used them in his own homes. For a clean, modern look, Hadley favored aluminum-colored and — believe it or not — brown aluminum blinds, as you can see below. When closed at night, brown blinds suggest the darkness beyond, according to Berger. In Florida, I already have these aluminum one-inch blinds in aluminum color to match the original mid-century windows. Time to get more.
Weren't Hadley's homes timeless? Note the aluminum-colored blinds at left and the brown aluminum ones at right. (Sources: left, superstratausa Instagram; right, House Beautiful)
Wow!
Redditor Star-Fever took this photo of fireflies in June 2022 in the Catskill Mountains with a three-hour exposure. As they posted at the time, “Enjoy the magic.”
Fireflies in the Catskills (photo: Star-Fever via Reddit)
Related Resources
Curious about the impact of artificial light on other nighttime insects? Read or listen to Dr. Avalon’s entire interview on Xerces Society’s Bug Banter podcast.
How dark are the night skies in your area? Look up your coordinates in this light pollution map.
Want to visit a dark sky place? Find one at Dark Sky International.
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