In December, we had a chance to catch up with our friends at Alliance Outdoor Lighting to learn about the new Bluetooth mesh technology that they are debuting in their BL-200-BT light fixtures. Here’s a sneak peak at that new product! Colour changing, dimming, zoning and programming all from your phone!
Accent or up-lights are the biggest bang for your buck in landscape lighting – they provide the most light for the least cost/fixture. Sean breaks down the good-better-best options from Kichler Lighting when it comes to their accent lights. These are all regular stocking items for us at The Shovel.
There’s an endless amount of options for lighting up your yard. Here are some of our favourites for addressing decks, stairs, pavers, and in-ground.
Interested in seeing what landscape lighting can do for your yard? Start with a Free 48-hour Landscape Lighting Demo!
NEW PRODUCT ALERT! Variable Lumen Output Accent Lights from Kichler Landscape Lighting. Two fixtures give you an output range of 100-800+ lumens.
As published in August issues of Neighbours Magazines
Could your yard use a little spruce up? Maybe you’ve just developed your yard and need to finish it off. Here’s three yard projects that we can help you out with to push your yard over the edge:
Add a Splash of Colour with Decorative Rock or Mulch
If your shrub beds are looking a little drab, the easiest way to breathe new life into them is by adding a rich coloured decorative rock or
mulch. Black Rundle Rock is one of the most popular items we carry, but you can also hit other colour notes with our various sizes of Rainbow Rock or Purple Sparkle. Or if you fancy something a little lighter to shovel and more comfortable under foot, we also offer a variety of recycled rubber mulch products in black, red, brown, and even green. Either way you go, a top up on your ground cover adds colour contrast to your grass, plants and other aggregates and helps choke out weeds. You’ll want to make sure you’re adding at least three inches of depth in combination with some good quality landscape fabric to achieve your best weed control.
Soothing Water Features
A fountain, bubbler, pond, or pondless waterfall adds another dimension of sound and visual focal point to your outdoor space. There are so many design options available in a variety of different sizes to fit every space. Focus on high impact areas like your front entrance or backyard patio. Maximize your enjoyment by locating it in a spot that’s visible and/or audible from windows. We have several different water features to choose from to fit your design style and available space. Whether it’s a fountain that sits directly on your deck or patio, a bubbler rock or urn that disappears into an underground basin, or a grander pond or pondless waterfall, we can help find the right feature for you.
Let There Be Light
As we move into the fall, the days get shorter and the time we have to enjoy our yards become less and less. Low voltage LED landscape lighting is simple to install, requires little-to-no digging, and hardly uses any electricity. Your average residential backyard can often be effectively lit with 5-7 fixtures, some wire and a transformer that plugs into your outside outlet. That’s something that can be done on a budget ranging from $750-$1500. If the idea sounds intriguing, but you’re not sure where to start, we offer on-site or in-store landscape lighting consultations to make sure you maximize the impact of your dollar.
All three of these projects can be done as a weekend DIY that we’re happy to walk you through. Alternatively, if you’d rather have someone do it for you, we can find someone to get it done as well.
Get started at www.TheRustyShovel.ca with a consult request, or visit our showroom hiding behind Staples at 680 Angus Street in Regina. We’re more than just great landscape supplies – we’re Landscaping Made Easier.
At The Rusty Shovel beautiful yards are our passion and we love nothing more than sharing that passion with our clients. The best way to do that is with our Landscape Design services. Our in-house designer, Jesse Matlock, has designed hundreds of unique and custom yards of varying budgets. With an honours in Sustainable Landscape Design, Jesse has the creativity and knowledge to not just design beautiful spaces, but also functional spaces. It Is not uncommon for our clients to get a design done only to be blown away with the actual potential of their yard. Where you see a tired old patch of grass, or an overwhelming new lot, or an overgrown yard we see possibility and solutions.
Our Landscape Designs always start with a $150.00 consultation that happens on site and acts as a collaborative brainstorming session to make sure the client’s wants and needs are being identified. From here, Jesse will take your wants and needs and translate them into a concept sketch right then and there. With that concept sketch in place to unlock the potential of the client’s space, we then offer a computer rendered design that fully clarifies what the yard can become. The computer renderings include 2D construction plans that outline all of the building materials and quantities, plant selections and locations, and landscape lighting selections and locations. On top of that the customer also gets their space shown in 3D photo realistic images. These images give the client the experience of being in their yard before it is constructed so they know exactly what things will look like…and they get those images in both daytime and nighttime settings.
It is no longer a problem where clients hope they or their contractor interprets the design right, everyone can see it. We love the computer rendered design phase because it always saves our clients time and money by having everyone on the same page with how things should look and exactly what material selections should be made. No more randomly picking plants and hoping that they live or regretting a paving stone colour selection. The cost of the design is saved by the client the second one construction mistake or material mistake is avoided. In the end, seeing or hearing about our client’s beautiful new spaces that they are now living in and enjoying is the most rewarding. It means we have transferred that passion we have for landscaping to our clients…and it happens with a design that shows them the space they always had right out their back door.
Want to keep up with some of Jesse’s latest work? Check him out on his Landscape.Designs Instagram account.
And if you’re ready, get more details and request your landscape design consult right now!
Our go-to brand when it comes to landscape lighting is Kichler, and within their line, the Design Pro LED products representalmost 100% of the products we keep in stock. Why is that? Sure halogen fixtures cost less up front, but the amount you can save on the complete installation combined with the cost of ownership makes LED the clear choice.
As you’ll see in the videos below, the annual savings on power consumption is remarkable – Design Pro LED fixtures use 75% less energy than the equivalent halogen system. The other thing to note is that because each fixture uses less energy and has a greater tolerance for voltage drop, you’ll use less wire and fewer and/or smaller transformer(s), which will save you money. The bulbs are also designed to have a 40,000 hour life span, which is a nice low maintenance option when you compare it to the annual bulb replacements required with a halogen system.
Take a look at a couple videos from Kichler that outline a couple larger projects and the benefits of using LED. But don’t get scared off at the size of some of the projects shown. You probably don’t have a vineyard or an entire neighbourhood to light up, so you won’t need nearly as many fixtures to make your yard pop into the evening hours.
Even though these videos all show professional installers, this is a project that you can tackle yourself. We’ll help you calculate your transformer load and give you ideas about placement, spacing, and the best type of fixtures to use in different situations. And installation is a snap with the Quic Disc included with every Design Pro LED fixture. Simply run your wire from your transformer and connect the fixture wire to the main wire by clamping together the Quic Disc. The wires can be dug into the ground or hidden in rock, mulch, or other ground cover to disguise it so all you’ll see is the fixture and the beautiful spread of light it puts out.
Want to get started? Bring us your landscape plan and we’ll offer some ideas and get you a price on your package.