Start With the Route, Not the Lights

Before you buy a single fitting, walk your garden path as you would on a dark November evening. Note where the surface changes — gravel to paving, a step, a curve, a gate latch. These are the points where feet hesitate, and they are exactly where light earns its keep. A path light is not there to decorate a border; it is there to show the ground beneath you and the edge of what you are walking on.

Sketch the run on paper, mark the corners and level changes, then decide how many fittings you need. As a rough guide, one light every 1.5 to 2 metres along a straight run gives a continuous pool of light without a runway effect. Corners, steps and junctions need their own fitting, placed slightly to the outside of the turn so the route reads clearly from a distance.

Spacing That Feels Even Underfoot

Even spacing matters more than brightness. If lights are bunched at the patio and thin out towards the shed, the eye reads the dark stretch as a hazard even when it is perfectly flat. Measure with a tape rather than pacing it out — the difference between 1.8 metres and 2.4 metres is far more obvious at night than you would expect.

• Straight runs: 1.5 to 2 metres apart, measured from the centre of each fitting.
• Curves: shorten the gap slightly on the inside of the bend so the light follows the line of travel.
• Steps: one light at the top, one at the bottom, and additional fittings on wider flights.
• Doorways and gates: place a fitting to one side, never directly in the threshold where it will blind you as you approach.

Avoid the temptation to light both sides of a narrow path. Alternating left and right can look charming in a brochure, but it creates a zigzag of glare that is genuinely harder to walk than a single, consistent line. If your path is wider than about 1.5 metres, lighting one edge properly will always beat scattering fittings across the whole width.

Angling Downward to Kill the Glare

Glare is the enemy of safe evening walking. A light pointed at eye level or tilted up towards a shrub does nothing for your footing and plenty to ruin your night vision. Angle every fitting downward so the beam lands on the walking surface within about a metre of the post. Most bollard and stake lights can be adjusted by 15 to 30 degrees; take the time to do it by hand, in the dark, rather than accepting the factory position.

Shield the lamp itself from view. If you can see the bright source when standing at the start of the path, it is too high or angled too flat. A useful check is to crouch to the height of a child or a dog — if the light is in their eyes, it will be in yours when you are carrying shopping or a sleeping toddler.

Colour Temperature and Brightness

Warm white light, somewhere around 2700K to 3000K, is the kindest choice for gardens and for your eyes after dark. Cooler, bluer light looks harsh against foliage and suppresses melatonin more strongly, which matters if the path runs past bedroom windows. Keep output modest: 50 to 100 lumens per fitting is ample for a domestic path, and lower is often better.

Use the same colour temperature across the whole run. Mixing warm and cool fittings along one path is the most common mistake we see, and it makes even a well-spaced scheme look untidy. If you already own mismatched lights, group them on separate switches rather than interleaving them.

The Dusk Walk Test

Wait until about half an hour after sunset, when the sky still holds a little light. Walk the path at your normal pace, from both directions, and look for three things: pools of shadow between fittings, glare from any source, and dark patches at steps or changes in level.

Take a torch with you, but keep it off unless you need it — the point is to judge the lighting as it will actually be used. Note anything that makes you slow down or look down. Those notes are your adjustment list, and they are far more reliable than anything you can judge from a photograph or a showroom display.

Fine-Tuning Through the Year

Paths change with the seasons. Summer growth can swallow a low fitting, and wet leaves or gravel can bounce light in unexpected ways. Revisit the layout in late autumn and again in spring. Raise or trim around any fitting that has become shaded, and check that joints and cable glands are still sound after winter rain.

If a section still feels dark, resist the urge to add a brighter lamp. Adding a fitting at the correct spacing, or nudging an existing one half a metre along, almost always gives a better result than turning the dimmer up. Good path lighting should be felt rather than noticed — you should simply be able to walk, comfortably and confidently, without thinking about it at all.