Daniel Island is a pretty place. The houses are gorgeous, and green spaces are abundant. However, Daniel Island landscape design isn’t without its challenges: Much of the island looks man-made. In many ways, there’s less harmony with the natural Lowcountry environment on Daniel Island than there is in other parts of the Charleston area. Notably, much of the landscape lighting is overdone…light pollution is abundant.
This doesn’t mean that I’m opposed to using landscape lighting in Charleston landscape design. On the contrary, I’m of the belief that landscape lighting is integral to the overall enjoyment of a Charleston landscape. After all, it’s dark 50% of the year: Nights are shorter in the summer and longer in the winter, but it’s always dark 50% of any given year. In order to enjoy your Charleston landscape design more than half of the time, you must illuminate it.
It’s important to note that there’s a difference between illuminating landscapes for the sake of illuminating them and using landscape lighting strategically to accentuate natural Lowcountry beauty. In my opinion, using landscape lighting strategically means aligning illumination with my native, low-maintenance Charleston landscape design philosophy. It means using landscape lighting to accentuate the natural shapes, textures, and colors of the native plants I use nearly exclusively.
The illumination of this palm on Daniel Island (zip code 29492) is an excellent example of using strategic landscape lighting in order to accentuate natural Lowcountry beauty. Notice what’s illuminated as well as what isn’t: What’s important here is that the landscape lighting brings out some, but not all, of the natural shapes, textures, and colors of the tree. The illumination focuses on the rugged textures of the trunk and the curves of the fronds, the parts of the tree that look most natural. If you contrast the wild, innately natural look of the illuminated trunk and partially-illuminated fronds with the linear, man-made look of much of master-planned Daniel Island, you’ll understand the point I’m trying to make.
Daniel Island is a pretty place, and I’m happy to lend my native, low-maintenance Charleston landscape design philosophy here. Perhaps nowhere in the Charleston area is the native aspect of my landscape design philosophy more important than in zip code 29492, where light pollution from landscape lighting is abundant.
-Seth Mason, Charleston SC
