The Visual Connection To Our Night Landscape

This past week I took the time to attend a seminar given by Janet Lennox Moyer, author of The Landscape Lighting Book, the definitive textbook on outdoor lighting from both the aesthetic and practical points of view. It was in Sacramento, sponsored by the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District. The original topic was to be Commercial Landscape Lighting, but it morphed into something bigger and better:

The Visual Connection to Our Night Landscape

"Exterior lighting provides an extension of our livable environment at night. We should create this environment through an aesthetic composition that respects safety and security. Discussions will include lighting issues critical to the design and installation of successful, cohesive landscape lighting systems. Focusing on issues to think about when evaluating the other garden elements that make up the overall landscape, and visually connecting the landscape with interior spaces.

Change is a constant in all gardens. Understanding the seasonal variations, how plant materials mature over the years, and the tendency of gardeners and owners to continually rethink and revamp their gardens helps a designer plan the needed growth-flexibility into a lighting system. Day and night comparisons, the effect of lighting from one season to another, both subtle and radical garden changes over a number of years will be shown as well as practical application information.

A successful landscape lighting system begins with an installation that the customer raves over, but continued success depends on maintenance. Maintenance depends on accurate and current documents. Documentation provides a record of communication. It illustrates your initial vision to a client; demonstrates necessary installation information; and then records critical data for maintenance."

Look for Jan's book (the revised and expanded second edition was published May 2005) in the library, at your local bookstore or at Amazon.com.

She had a great slide show and is a dynamic speaker/ presenter. She covered all of the above and more.

Jan has some strong opinions and shares them.

She does not like aluminum fixture housings (see her informative chapter on corrosion.)
She likes brass and said she thinks we might see titanium fixtures before long. She does not like well lights.

She prefers downlighting/ moonlighting to pathlights. (You should see her slides where she has 8 climbers working on a job to 60 feet up, or the other ones with the articulated lift.)

She does not like colored lights on any plants, but likes to use colors in architectural lighting, water features and sculptures.

Jan likes low light levels from 0.25 to 2.0 FC

(NOTE: FC= Foot Candle, the light output measured on a 12" by 12" surface one foot from a standard (3/4"candle.) Another measure, a Lumen, is the light of a full moon, which is also 1/10th of a Foot Candle.

Jan limits uplight angles to a maximum 30 degrees from vertical. (She used to think 35 degrees but she has changed her mind about that).

When it comes to line voltage she does not like mercury vapor (too blue) and does like metal halide.

I learned a bit more than I knew about planning for adding and moving fixtures as plants grow, lighting different kinds of water features, using a combination of uplights and downlights in trees, etc.

We saw pictures of jobs including the Chicago Botanic Garden and a couple of stately Napa Valley wineries (Far Niente Winery and Turley Wine Cellars for the connoisseurs out there.)

If you ever get a chance to see and hear Jan, do.

Check out her website: http://www.janmoyerdesign.com/