The art of great garden lighting

When it comes to residential outdoor lighting; a considered lighting plan will help provide a seamless connection between your indoor and outdoor space. Incorporating simple lighting techniques with the correct selection of light fittings will help achieve a balance between safety and practicality; whilst delivering an outdoor space that exudes style.

Prospective customers must ask themselves: How the space will be used during the day and night, and what am I trying to achieve with this lighting? Do I want to highlight certain aspects of a garden, or illuminate a pathway? Are there any changes in levels I could light for safety? Will these products hold up whilst facing the full force of Mother Nature?

The best outdoor lighting solutions will come from companies that make sure they take the answers to these questions into account and ensure the client’s vision is realised — all while providing quality products.

Gardens at Night, an Australian company specialising in the design and manufacture of energy efficient outdoor lighting, is one such company — offering a complete solution for every outdoor space, and setting standards in the industry for technology, aesthetics, functionality and durability.

With its origins in Melbourne and Sydney, the company began expanding to supply lighting products across Australia. With the growing network, their commitment to provide quality service and increased accessibility meant that clients could be supported at a local level. 

Today, Gardens at Night are making their way across the Tasman. This is courtesy of Fourth Dimension Lighting, a New Zealand-based distributor of quality lighting products — and the only distributor of Gardens at Night’s products in Aotearoa.

Fourth Dimension Lighting director and general manager Nick Gilbert says the primary quality of Gardens at Night’s offering is quality itself.

“Their philosophy is to deliver quality lighting that will help bring your projects to life at night and be the best garden-focused lighting brand in Australasia,” says Nick. “And part of that is developing products that are durable and suit the environment.”

One way that Gardens at Night achieves this is through the use of quality materials and technology. For example, with many other outdoor light fittings, once the LED bulb reaches the end of its life, it’s impossible to remove the LED from the fitting.

However, with Gardens at Night products, users can swap out the entire light engine out of the fitting — enhancing both the usability and sustainability of the products. The durability of the products are also critical in this sense — and this comes down to the company’s commitment to physical material quality.

When in talks to distribute Gardens at Night products in New Zealand through Fourth Dimension Lighting, this was at the top of the priority list for Nick — the last thing he wanted was to be receiving returned units from dissatisfied customers.

“I did a lot of due diligence, figuring out if it was fit for purpose in outdoor environments in New Zealand,” says Nick. “I spent a day at their head office, going over the product with their design team, their manufacturing process and the technology they use.

“I very quickly realised that these guys are passionate about what they do, and that their product meets and exceeds the requirements of the New Zealand environment.”

The fittings’ performance in the New Zealand environment was of particular interest when bringing the products over: since our overall landmass is more coastal than Australia’s, there were concerns that salt and corrosion could threaten the lifespan of the outdoor light fittings. But this concern was quickly dispelled.

“The fittings use brass as their base material which uses less embodied energy than aluminium and is second to none for resistance to corrosion. They’re also designed to stop ingress of water either through the fitting or the wiring with a range of accessories and guides available.”

“This is just one of the design aspects that differentiates Gardens at Night from the many other suppliers.”

For high-end outdoor lighting to work, the products need to be in harmony with its surroundings. For this reason, some of the best outdoor lighting outcomes have been born out of a successful collaboration between companies like Fourth Dimension Lighting and landscape architects — partnerships that combine the expertise of both parties to create a spectacularly-lit outdoor space.

Without the right know-how, many projects ‘get a bit carried away’ with garden lighting, Nick says.

“You can have the best garden in the world, and you can fill it up with lights and it can end up looking like an airport runway,” he says. “What you need is the technical expertise to achieve that ambience, that vibe — and that’s what we achieve with Gardens at Night.”

The Australian supplier’s products suited the trends in the New Zealand market, Nick says, and their range of quality fittings and accessories offer a complete solution for every outdoor space.

From highlighting focal points like a big feature tree, to subtly lighting a perimeter pathway with low level lighting, to providing ambient accent lighting on hedging — Gardens at Night has perfected the art of illuminating, and therefore enhancing, any outdoor area.

“The products that they have developed are all very much focused on creating that overall ambience, effect or impact on the space — helping to bring projects to life at night.”

Learn more about Fourth Dimension Lighting and its range.