There\u2019s more to landscaping than lawns, flowers, shrubs, and trees according to Eric Mitchell, the Landscape Lighting Specialist, who spoke enthusiastically about painting with light at the November 9 NHLA Dinner Meeting in Manchester.<\/p>\n
\u201cLighting can determine how you view the world personally,\u201d Mitchell told the 46 attendees. \u201cLighting is the absence of darkness,\u201d he said as he recited a brief history of outdoor lighting from the mid-20th century. We\u2019ve come a long way in adding light to our work, he said.\u2028\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Reasons to light a landscape include safety and security for the homeowner, as well as enhancing the design effects for plants, trees, walls, buildings, artwork, and water features in your landscapes. He showed samples of his work, including backlighting, up lighting, grazing, silhouetting, cross lighting, down lighting, and reducing glare from bad standard house lights.\u2028\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cLight needs darkness to be successful,\u201d he said, noting most of his sales calls with clients are after dark. \u201cWhat we see is the light that is reflected off of objects. It is the absence of darkness.\u201d Landscape lighting can draw the eye to evoke human emotions of warmth, safety, and calm.\u2028\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Mitchell went through quick lighting physics, speaking about the Color Rendering Index (CRI), the Kelvin scale to achieve the correct warmth of lights \u2014 2700k to 3000k is the ideal yellow warm light to evoke fire and warmth \u2013 and the attributes of low voltage and LED lights.\u2028 \u201cLED lights, invented almost a century ago in Russia, have changed lighting forever,\u201d he said. There are many bulbs for many jobs and every landscape and every object can have a special light.<\/p>\n
He encouraged landscapers to include lighting in all of their projects to make their designs more attractive and appealing to clients.<\/p>\n
Future NHLA Dinner Meetings in January and March include Facing Employment Challenges in the Landscape Industry and Migrating to Electric Power for Landscape Work.<\/p>\n
\u2014 For more information about lighting, contact Eric Mitchell at Northeast Lighting Supply, 8 Dearborn Road, Peabody, MA 01960.\u00a0 Email:\u00a0emitchell@northeastnursery.com. Phone: (978) 376-9542 (cell) or (978) 864-4417 (office) Website:\u00a0www.northeastnursery.com.<\/p>\n
\u2014 by Mike Barwell, Perfect North Lawncare, NHLA Interim Education Coordinator<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s more to landscaping than lawns, flowers, shrubs, and trees […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,24,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-29","category-commentary","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n