Nov 7, 2025, 8:00:00 AM
Planning landscape lighting involves more than choosing a few fixtures and deciding where to place them.
A successful design should make your Memphis home more beautiful after dark, but it should also improve visibility, help people move safely around the property, and make outdoor spaces more enjoyable to use. That means considering what you want to illuminate, how each area is used, and how the lighting will look from different viewpoints.
You will also need to make decisions about brightness, lighting techniques, fixture quality, controls, wiring, maintenance, and budget. With so many details to consider, it helps to understand the full process before moving forward.
This guide will walk you through the most important decisions involved in planning landscape lighting for your home so you can feel more confident about the system you choose.
Start by deciding what you want your landscape lighting plan to accomplish. Some areas may need light to make steps, driveways, and walkways easier to navigate. Other areas may benefit from softer lighting that highlights your home, trees, landscaping, patio, pool, or outdoor living spaces.
From there, a landscape lighting plan generally involves six steps:
Identify your priorities. Decide which areas need lighting for safety, functionality, security, or appearance.
Choose the features you want to highlight. These may include architectural details, mature trees, planting beds, pathways, entrances, patios, pools, or other focal points.
Select the right lighting technique for each area. Uplighting, downlighting, pathway lighting, architectural lighting, and other techniques create different effects.
Plan fixture placement and light levels. Consider where fixtures can be installed, how bright the light should be, where shadows will fall, and whether the fixtures could create glare.
Consider the complete system. The transformer, wiring, controls, lighting zones, fixture quality, and potential for future expansion should all be part of the plan.
Review the design after dark. Landscape lighting should be evaluated at night so fixture positions, brightness, and angles can be adjusted before the installation is considered complete.
Every home and property is different, so there is no single lighting layout that works for everyone. The best results come from creating a design around your home, landscape, and the way you use your outdoor spaces.
The rest of this guide explores the benefits, applications, design techniques, technology, costs, and practical considerations involved in creating the right system for your Memphis home.
Benefits of Landscape Lighting
The Different Types of Landscape Lighting for Your Property
Landscape Lighting Design Ideas & Techniques
Keep Your Outdoor Lighting Energy-Efficient
Enjoy a Smart Outdoor Lighting System
DIY Landscape Lighting vs. Hiring a Professional
Understanding the Cost of Landscape Lighting
The Importance of Outdoor Lighting Maintenance
How to Choose a Landscape Lighting Company in Memphis, TN
You’re thinking about installing landscape lighting, but you want to make sure it’s going to be worth your investment. There are some key benefits of outdoor lighting to consider.
Here are some of the benefits that you can expect from a landscape lighting installation.
Installing landscape lighting will definitely help boost curb appeal and in turn, improve property value. With the right outdoor lighting, you can quickly become the envy of the neighborhood with a home that exudes major curb appeal.
When lighting a home with curb appeal in mind, we like to highlight the home’s architectural features. This includes lighting up arches, corbels, cornices, and other unique features of the home. These features take on an even more unique and appealing look with lighting shining on them at night.
We’ll also incorporate landscape lighting to highlight some of your trees and shrubs.
Keep in mind that good landscape lighting is so much more than shining a spotlight on a tree or shrub. You want the design to be artistic and beautiful. One of the best benefits of landscape lighting is the aesthetic value that you’ll enjoy with your home lit so beautifully in the evening hours
Another prime benefit of outdoor lighting is that it will increase the functionality of your property.
With the right lighting, you’ll find that you’re spending more time outside. The sun going down will no longer have to mean everyone moves inside. You’ll be able to see what you’re doing and safely get around your property, allowing you to spend more time outside.
Two final key benefits of landscape lighting are enhanced safety and security.
A well-lit home tends to be a more secure home. A well-lit home not only looks occupied (even when you’re not actually home) but it would also put a trespasser on display if they tried to enter your property.
With the right outdoor lighting design, you can not only make your home more aesthetically pleasing in the evening hours but you can also make it more secure
Along with that, a well-lit home is also safer. When people can see where they’re going in the evening hours, your property will be safer to navigate. That means decreasing the risk of trips and falls and other concerns.
All outdoor lighting is not the same. In fact, there are different types of outdoor lighting that can be used to achieve different purposes. These are what we would call “lighting applications.”
There are four key lighting applications that people tend to be interested in:
Let’s look at each.
As the name implies, landscape lighting is all about highlighting your property’s landscaping features. This includes trees, shrubs, flowers, and more. You can really showcase your property’s unique landscape with some artistic lighting designs.
Architectural lighting is all about showcasing your home’s structural features. There are many aspects of your home that make it unique. The stone facade, the columns, or maybe the trim work are features that can be highlighted to showcase your home in the evening hours.
Another type of outdoor lighting is security lighting. As we’ve mentioned, a well-lit home is a more secure home. Your home should always feel safe. But if it’s dark or poorly lit during the nighttime hours, you might have some concerns.
Finally, vacation home lighting is exactly what it sounds like…outdoor lighting for your vacation home. We know that many clients with second homes desire the same amazing benefits of outdoor lighting that they enjoy at their primary residence.
In addition to these four primary lighting applications, there are also various lighting techniques, fixtures, and even styles that can come into consideration to create a landscape lighting design.
In this outdoor lighting guide, we’ll dive into more details about the many different ways that lighting can be used to enhance your Memphis property. With strategic decisions, you can really maximize your lighting design.
As we’ve mentioned there are various ways to customize your landscape lighting with different landscape lighting techniques. Details such as how you position the lights, how bright they are, and even what type of light you use can all impact the results.
As you consider what landscape lighting ideas make the most sense for your property, you’ll want to think about the various techniques and how they can achieve different results.
For example, there is uplighting vs. downlighting to consider.
As you might have guessed (and just as the names imply) when you uplight a landscape, the lights point up. When you are downlighting an exterior, the lights point down.
Often, downlighting is used to light up driveways and walkways so that people can see where they are going. Downlights can also be used as a way to light up a patio space and make it more functional.
This lighting technique is sometimes referred to as “moonlighting” since it creates a similar effect as the moon shining down.
Uplighting, on the other hand, involves lights pointing upward. We often use uplighting as an architectural lighting technique to highlight focal points like sculptures or landscaping.
Uplighting can also be a great technique for creating shadows and adding depth and interest to your property.
While we do often think of uplighting as an aesthetic addition, it also adds a sense of security to the home. The better-lit the home is, the better able you’ll be to deter unwanted intruders. Uplighting often ends up lighting up windows and doors, ultimately making them safer.
In general, outdoor light placement is a big consideration when it comes to creating the desired effect you want. Every property is unique and therefore each design should ultimately be a customized process.
Energy use is another important factor to consider when planning landscape lighting for your Memphis home.
Most professionally installed residential systems use low-voltage power, which gives designers more flexibility when placing fixtures throughout a property. However, low voltage does not automatically make a system energy-efficient. The type of fixtures used, the amount of light they produce, and how long the system runs each night all affect overall energy use.
For most new landscape lighting systems, high-quality LED fixtures are the best choice.
LED stands for light-emitting diode. It produces light when an electrical current passes through a small semiconductor.
Unlike traditional incandescent or halogen bulbs, LEDs turn more of the electricity they use into light and lose less energy as heat. This allows them to provide the illumination needed for an outdoor lighting design while using less power.
Energy efficiency is one of the biggest advantages of LED landscape lighting. Residential LEDs use at least 75 percent less energy and can last up to 25 times longer than incandescent lighting.
That lower energy use can reduce the cost of operating your outdoor lighting, especially if the system includes several fixtures or runs for many hours each night.
LEDs also have a much longer useful life than traditional bulbs. High-quality LED lighting products are often rated for approximately 30,000 to 50,000 operating hours or more. Their actual lifespan will depend on the quality of the fixture, the installation, outdoor conditions, and how often the system is used.
LEDs also tend to lose brightness gradually instead of burning out suddenly. As a result, a well-designed LED system can provide years of reliable illumination before fixtures need to be replaced.
This longer lifespan can also give a landscape lighting designer more freedom when placing fixtures. Lights can be positioned where they create the best effect rather than only where bulbs will be easy to reach. This can make it easier to illuminate rooflines, mature trees, architectural details, and other important features.
Timers, astronomical clocks, dimming, and smart controls can make the system even more efficient by ensuring the lights operate only when needed. A properly designed system should provide enough illumination for safety, function, and appearance without using more fixtures or brightness than the property requires.
LED technology is now standard in most professionally designed landscape lighting systems. The more important question is not simply whether a company uses LEDs, but whether it installs durable, professional-grade fixtures and designs the system to provide the right amount of light in the right places.
Today’s landscape lighting has also come incredibly far from a technology standpoint. There have been some exciting advances as far as what’s possible with landscape lighting.
With WiFi landscape lighting control, you can have your lights controlled by an app on your smart device. That means that at the push of a button, you can make instant changes to your lighting set-up. Often, homeowners pre-program different lighting “schemes” that they prefer for different situations.
For instance, you might have a lighting scheme that is set for a dinner party with brighter lighting so that everyone can see one another (and what they’re eating).
But if you are having a more intimate, immediate family gathering, perhaps you just want a handful of lights to come on…and maybe you want them dimmed, particularly if you are going to be spending time by a fire feature.
With smart landscape lighting, you have precise control of your lighting.
Color-changing lights are another technological advance. Your light colors can be controlled by a smart device.
Imagine you’re having a party for the big game and you want to change your lighting design to feature the team colors. That can be set up easily on an app. Or, maybe instead of going through the hassle of stringing lights for the holidays you just want to light up your property in red or green. That can be done, too.
You can have a lot of fun with color-changing systems.
To some people, a landscape lighting installation might seem pretty easy. You’re just adding a few lights here and there, right?
Hopefully, this outdoor lighting guide has helped you to understand that it’s a lot more complex than that. But here are some additional reasons to consider hiring a pro instead of tackling DIY landscape lighting.
One of the key reasons why it’s important to consider a pro is that you’ll get the most out of your investment. In order to ensure that you have a truly professional-looking final result, you need to work with an actual professional.
After all, you want to make sure you’re reaping all of the benefits such as increased property value and curb appeal, enhanced enjoyment, and safety.
There’s also the risk of mistakes to consider. Unfortunately, homeowners and even some less-skilled pros can make mistakes that impact your success.
Common landscape lighting mistakes include using too many lights, using the wrong types of lights, or creating a lackluster design. Along with that, wiring mistakes can be a pretty dangerous risk. Poor wire connections or faulty grounding can put you or your family in danger…and cause you hassles and headaches that can be expensive to fix.
While people might assume that an outdoor lighting job is simple to complete, there’s typically more know-how with outdoor electrical wiring than people tend to realize. It’s not uncommon for people to realize they’re in over their heads when tackling a DIY landscape lighting project.
Of course, it’s not enough to hire any old landscape lighting designer for your landscape lighting installation. We recommend finding a Certified Outdoor Lighting Designer.
If you truly want the best results, you need to work with the best designers. An area where professional landscape lighting often goes awry is in the design. You might notice that a lot of lighting projects look identical. That’s because the landscape lighting designer didn’t create a custom design and failed to think outside of the box.
This is where hiring a Certified Outdoor Lighting Designer can make a world of difference. In fact, one of the principles of the program I completed with the Association of Outdoor Lighting Professionals is to “expose participants to different perspectives in lighting design.”
This translates into proper installation, too. Once the design is complete, you definitely want to make sure that it’s installed correctly. A Certified Outdoor Lighting Designer will know exactly what they’re doing.
Outdoor lighting is not exactly a small investment, so you want to make sure that you’re getting the most possible value out of it. While you can certainly find companies that will cut corners and do it cheaper, the very reasons that we outlined above are exactly why it’s worth paying a little bit more and getting the job done right.
The cost of landscape lighting can vary because every home, property, and lighting plan is different.
A smaller project focused on an entrance, walkway, or patio will usually cost less than a complete lighting design that includes the home’s architecture, trees, planting beds, outdoor living areas, and other parts of the property.
Several factors can affect the final cost, including:
The number and quality of fixtures
The size and layout of the property
The lighting techniques used
Wiring distances and installation conditions
Transformer and control requirements
Smart controls, dimming, or lighting zones
The complexity of the design and installation
When comparing proposals, it is important to look beyond the number of fixtures or the lowest quoted price. Two systems may appear similar at first, but the finished results can be very different depending on the quality of the fixtures, how carefully they are positioned, and whether the system is designed to remain reliable and allow for future expansion.
Landscape lighting is both a technical system and a visual design. A thoughtful plan should provide the right amount of light, reduce glare, highlight the most important features of your property, and make outdoor areas easier to use after dark.
It is also important to consider who will design and install the system. Some companies offer outdoor lighting as one of many services, while others specialize in it. Experience with fixture placement, beam spread, electrical requirements, controls, and nighttime adjustments can have a noticeable effect on the finished design.
The best way to determine the cost of lighting your property is to have a professional evaluate the areas you want to illuminate, discuss your priorities, and recommend a system that fits your home and your budget.
Outdoor lighting is often installed by landscaping companies or other businesses that do lighting as a “side job.” But that means they’re not bringing the top skills and expertise to the field. Because landscape lighting truly is both an art and a science, an unqualified technician simply can’t deliver the best results.
Even with a top-notch system, you’re going to have some outdoor lighting maintenance that needs to be done. Keeping up with maintenance is important as it helps protect the long-term value of your system.
A little bit of a proactive approach with maintenance can really go a long way in maintaining your lighting design over time
Here are a few things to keep in mind.
As we’ve talked about in this landscape lighting guide, maintenance of older systems had a lot to do with regularly changing bulbs. But with today’s LED lighting, that’s not necessary on a regular basis.
Instead, landscape lighting maintenance is looking at ensuring that your system is functioning optimally and making tweaks as needed. Since lighting fixtures are outside, it’s not uncommon for them to get bumped out of place or moved over time.
When your landscaping company is there tending to your plants or mowing the lawn, they might accidentally bump a fixture. Or, maybe your kids were just playing soccer in the lawn and a fixture got hit by the ball.
Alignment issues such as these can be easily fixed during routine maintenance. This might sound like a small thing but it actually makes a big difference in maintaining the integrity of your design.
Landscape lighting maintenance is also about finding and fixing potential problems. Bulbs still do get broken or over time (10+ years) might require changing. Along with that, sometimes wires make their way up to the surface and need to be re-buried.
Insects and debris can also get into the lights and cause issues, requiring cleaning.
In general, the idea is to seek out and fix problems. That even includes changing settings to accommodate daylight savings time. When ongoing lighting maintenance is performed you gain peace of mind that everything is going to continue to function as it should.
Keep in mind that not all landscape lighting professionals offer maintenance services. But these services can be really valuable when it comes to maintaining your system.
At Mid South Outdoor Lighting & Audio, we tell clients that keeping up with routine maintenance is a great way to protect the long-term value. We advise that homeowners invest in quarterly Lighting Maintenance Program visits.
At a minimum, our Lighting Maintenance Program involves coming out twice a year. However, we have clients that we come out as often as monthly for. If you have hundreds of fixtures and lights throughout the front and back of your house, there is much to be inspected.
With ongoing outdoor lighting maintenance, you can gain peace of mind that any potential problems will be sought out and fixed before they can cause major issues with your lighting design.
At the end of the day, getting the most out of outdoor lighting in Memphis, TN comes down to the company that you choose to do the work. There are a lot of landscape lighting companies in Memphis, TN, but you want to make a choice that you feel will get the job done right.
This can feel like a daunting decision when there are a lot of companies to choose from. You should start the process with a list of possible options and then do your research.
Avoid the “Jack of all Trades”
We recommend looking for a company that does not aim to be a “jack-of-all-trades,” as many landscape lighting services do. Often lighting is an “add-on service” for a lot of landscaping companies. But you want to find a company that does lighting all day, every day.
Look for Companies that Keep up with “What’s New”
It’s also important to look for companies that are committed to staying on top of “what’s new.” That means the latest lighting techniques, skills, and products.
Outdoor lighting has come incredibly far in recent years with new lighting technology but not all companies are keeping up.
Look for Certified Outdoor Lighting Designers
We also recommend looking for a company that has a Certified Outdoor Lighting Designer. As we mentioned previously, this is the highest level certification out there and means that you’re getting a true pro.
Research Your Options
When it comes to getting the best possible outdoor lighting for your Memphis, TN property, it’s important that you take some time to research your options. We would recommend spending time looking through the websites of the companies that you’re considering. Go to the “About Us” page of any company that you’re considering and read about them!
Avoid shopping on price alone as you want to make sure that you are truly satisfied with the end result.
At Mid South Outdoor Lighting & Audio, we know that outdoor lighting is more than just something that “looks nice.” While there’s no doubt it will add tremendous aesthetic appeal, it also brings functional value by allowing you to get more use out of your space.
If you choose Mid South Outdoor Lighting & Audio for your outdoor lighting project, we are ready to help you maximize enjoyment and use of your outdoor areas with a lighting design that is customized for you. With just the right lighting, you’ll be enjoying your property more than ever.
Are you ready to create a secure, functional, and beautiful property at any hour of the day? If so, let’s meet and discuss some bright ideas.
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