Tree Lighting

Tree lighting is one of the most superb forms of lighting design. Any landscape with large enough trees will be enhanced by this highly sophisticated and innovative lighting technique. Tree lighting is done by concealing mercury vapor lights in the higher branches of the tree where they cannot be seen by viewers on the ground. Mercury vapor lights give off a blue-white light very similar to moonlight that filters through the leaves and branches and rains down onto the ground. Tree lighting’s close approximation to natural moonlight adds a romantic, almost mystical element to a place, and contributes to a feeling of time being suspended under the ambient radiance of the trees.

Illuminations Lighting and Design has worked for many years as an outdoor tree lighting and landscape lighting design firm. Over the years we have developed a number of strategies for using tree lights in almost any commercial, municipal, or residential environment to create specific benefits for a wide variety of clientele.

Municipal Parks

Tree lighting is an essential component of outdoor park lighting. Parks are special places people seek out to escape the pressure and mediocrity of the mundane world. Parks help ground and center the mind in the energies of Nature and release the stress that accumulates within the self during after prolonged activity in offices and industrial environments. It is very important that a public park visited at night be sufficiently lit to provide clear visibility for walking, conversation, and safety. As a close approximation to natural moonlight, tree lighting extends the romantic and sentimental nature of the moon itself into the general landscape. Benches located beneath tree lights or other commercial outdoor lighting are excellent places to have a meaningful conversation with a significant other, and they are much safer as well.

Academic Institutions

The architecture and landscapes of academic institutions often suggests Old World and Classical Motifs. Although America is a young country and its academies nowhere nearly as old as those of Europe, larger trees help add a sense of antiquity to these institutions because they are obviously older, and contribute greatly to the university’s image as a place of established learning and credibility. Tree lighting is needed on college and university campuses because many trees grow outward as well as up as they age. Simple up lights installed near the trunk of a tree will not adequately light its branches and leaves. Tree lights, on the other hand, can be positioned in key locations throughout the lower branches and upper canopy, creating a sublime and stately presence for students and faculty to enjoy and admire throughout the night.

Commercial Properties

Tree lights will also create a feeling of established presence for a corporate landscape. A brand new company surrounded by a canopy of mature trees will look older than it really is, and possibly gain a competitive advantage in a marketplace that often emphasizes experience over talent a bit too much. They are vital to commercial security lighting, too, because of the fact that shadows under trees allow vandals and burglars too much room to maneuver in secret.

Tree lighting helps emphasize a company’s dedication to environmental concerns. As more and more companies seek to enhance their public image by either going green or supporting green initiatives, illuminating trees around the building helps harmonize the architecture with Nature.

Hospitality Industries

All major hospitality industries depend greatly on resort tree lighting in their outdoor landscape design. Landscapes around hotels, resorts, country clubs, and five star restaurants contribute to a feeling of refined escape and elegance. Country club diners look out of clubhouse windows onto landscapes that appear sublime and timeless under the surreal ambiance of tree lighting. Guests at warm weather resorts can enjoy the site of palm trees from their window throughout the night, and hotels with tree lighting create the illusion of both a larger edifice and a more remote getaway from the pressures of life.

Tree lighting, however, does a great deal more for hospitality industries than provide decoration. These lights can actually contribute significantly to general outdoor garden lighting in a number of ways. Many resorts host events at night on a pavilion or stage under lighted trees. The illumination from the mercury lights provides an exotic compliment to general lighting that improves visibility without diminishing the feeling of escape and altered reality that a vacation is supposed to create. Golfers who play at night will especially appreciate the additional lighting under trees for those shots that are hard to make under moonlight alone. Restaurant diners who prefer the patio also will enjoy the added general lighting that comes down from the trees and fills the spaces between tables with a warm glow.

Custom Homes
Custom very often to have high fences and ornamental, gated entrances that open into a long winding drive leading up to the house. Trees that grow along these driveways sometimes arch over the pavement and mesh together into a canopy. Placing lights in these trees creates a sense of removal from the rest of the neighborhood, and the feeling that you are entering an estate and not just another home.

Tree lights also play an important role in home-based entertainment. Trees that overhand a patio can create an aura of accent lighting around the patio itself, and tree lights installed above flower beds and gardens provide a layer of ambient down light that overlaps the garden and path lights installed within the foliage itself.