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Over the past 5-6years the landscape lighting industry has been completely transformed by the new technological advances in LED lighting. At the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Landscape Architecture, lighting designers Doreen Madden from Lux lighting design, and Michael Davis from InSite Landscape Design, Inc in Milwaukee, WI discussed the new, exciting potentials for their industry unlocked by the new technology.

Alongside many practical advantages of LED, the potential for color and scene-setting are enormous. Color filters come in a range of Calvin temperatures to illuminate different plants with different effects. For example, a cooler, more blue light is best used in up lighting pine trees, while warmer lights are better for a warmer toned bark, such as a ‘heritage’ River Birch.

Because LED thrives on dimming control, a new potential for setting a wide verity of lighting ‘scenes’ is possible. Various dimming and lighting settings can activate automatically on a timer system or, with an iphone app, can be controlled remotely. This may mean that on a typical summer night a low warm glow may set mood lighting typically, but with a few controls or pre-set scenes, one can switch the lights into a party mode.

While the technology is still evolving, CDL/S will be following closely and is excited to see what happens next in the landscape lighting design world.

Check out a recent CDL/S project that used innovative LED lighting.