Ellerslie Flower Show Lighting Director, Jenny Pullar, teamed up with landscape designer Norma de Langen, at last year's flower show to create the spectacular Morning Fresh outdoor garden using HUNZA™ lights.
Because of my extensive commitments to different lighting projects around the site I needed this job to go in early in the construction phase. Fifty-one HUNZA™ fittings were all roughly positioned, cabled up and wrapped in rubbish bags. Hard landscape construction, painting and planting then continued around (and over!) the bundles of lights. Come focus time, lights were rescued and positioned none the worse for wear. No other comprehensive range of residential light fittings would have survived this treatment.
The lighting concept was to reinforce the branding of three new dishwashing liquids by 'washing' the garden at night with light in the product colours of lime green, orange and lavender. Corporate colours of turquoise and red were also used. The brief from landscape designer was that lights were to be largely invisible in the daytime.
The soft texturing of shadows fitted with the overall romantic planting theme in a way that harsh shadows never could have. The emphasis was on plant form and density. Copper spike spots provided the necessary low angle of light and blended with garden mulch to be completely inconspicuous in the daytime.
Planting was a major theme of the flower show, and to reflect this, lighting attention was focused on roses and grasses in the garden. The dominant colours of painted walls were allowed to generally recede, creating a new atmosphere for the evening. Similar texturing of foliage and flowers was used throughout the beds, with nothing taller than 600mm. In a sophisticated technical exercise each bed was lit with different angles of light and colour to show the planting in a different light.
Three brilliant glowing red acrylic water features took centre stage. These were lit from within by HUNZA™ Pond Lites using 50 watt lamps for added intensity and dramatic effect. All other lamps in the garden were 20 watts.
Three angled walls with soft texturing of shadows were used to tempt visitors into the garden. Twenty-one solid copper HUNZA™ Spike Spot Adjustable fittings were carefully positioned to give three overlapping shadows on each side of each wall, as well as providing good light coverage within the beds. Colours of filters used in the lights were determined by the wall to be lit.
Three densely foliaged trees were back lit to cast shadows across the lawn of the final garden area. Five HUNZA™ solid copper Wall Down Lites were used with lime green filters to green and lush the lawn. Trees were up lit with lavender, the final dish wash liquid colour. Three Spike Spots were used for each tree. Because of their IP68 rating there were no concerns about burying the fittings inground to disappear in the daytime.
