Landscape lighting: lighting a garden for use and safety without washing it out.

Safe movement along paths, steps and level changes; adequate light where security and supervision require it; and controlled emphasis on selected trees, water and features. Anything beyond that generally adds glare, energy cost and maintenance rather than quality.

Usually water and earthing. Fittings without the right IP rating for their location, junctions buried in inaccessible positions, cable damaged during later planting or excavation, and inadequate earthing are the recurring causes. Most of it is decided by the installation detail, not the fitting brand.

Before paving and planting, in conduit, with draw wires and accessible junction points. Retrofitting lighting through a finished landscape means cutting paving and trenching through beds, at several times the cost and with permanent scarring of the surfaces.

Yes. Artificial light at night disturbs birds, bats and insects, and heavy uplighting into tree canopies affects roosting. On sites with ecological value, lighting is kept low, warm, shielded and time-controlled, and sensitive areas such as water edges and dense canopy are deliberately left dark.

Warmer light, generally in the lower colour-temperature range, reads better on foliage, bark and stone and is less disruptive at night than cool white. Cooler light is sometimes used for security areas. Mixing colour temperatures across one visual field is a common and visually jarring mistake.

For path and bollard lighting on sites with genuine sun exposure and modest performance expectations, it can work and it removes cabling. Battery life, monsoon and winter performance, shading from the very trees being lit, and replacement cost should be assessed honestly before it is adopted across a whole scheme.