Lighting your palms.

[3 Milesfrom Gulf of Mexico]

What does everyone use or recommend for their uplighting for their palms to illuminate them at night?  On my Roystonea regia I use a standard yellow flood light.  Post some pictures of your palms illuminated at night and let them show you their night time colors.  

[Steve Mac]

Mate, I don't have any pics on hand but I have ripped out all of my coloured lights. I had green, red, blue, purple and colour changing. They were all horrible. 

Stick to warm white the most natural and pleasing.

And keep the wattage low, allow for the effect to be pleasant after your eyes have night adjusted, keep the bright cool white light for your kitchen.

 

[waykoolplantz]

youre about 45 minutes away from Volt Lighting in Lutz. 

i have 50+ led fixtures @3000 kelvin for a slightly whiter look 

[sonoranfans]

The brightest illumination off your palm per lumen of light launched will be green.  One year at christmas I decided to uplight my sabal causiarum, bismarckia and copernicia fallaensis and bailey so I purchased 2 lights which had RGB switch for color and also a white color.  When shining them up on these 20-30' foof tall palms and other palms I noticed a few things about leaves and light reflection.

1) first fan palms reflected far more light than pinnate palms in my yard.  This is probably due to all the angles of reflection coming off all those leaflets.  Among feathers, the more rigid planar ones reflected the most(kentiopsis was the best reflector, archies were pretty good).   Its kind of like a disco ball vs a flat mirror, all those little reflecting surfaces scatter the light.  My royals were not reflecting much off the leaflets at 35', LOL!

2) of the fan palms, bismarckia with its waxy white leaf reflected the most light, next brightest was fallaensis with causiarum and (green) bailey notably less light than the first two.  darker green fan palms reflected less light, not much.  I dont have pics but the effect on the big fan palms created a huge 3D image of their forms in the darkness, walking among them overhead with all the leaf definition in  reflected light in the darkness was amazing.

white is of course ~Red plus green plus blue(though LED' are more narrow band) and chloropbhyll absorbs in the red very strongly and the blue also strongly but green light is not absorbed by the chlorophyll and other leaf chromophores.  So not surprisingly, a 3(?) watt green bulb was reflecting brighter than the same wattage white bulb, yes green reflected the most light on all palms.  Red was so strongly absorbed that when I used the red light I thought it had become unplugged at first.  I couldn't even tell it was on in a neighborhood where people had put up their christmas lights(not pitch darkness).  I tried later after they shut them off and I wasn't sure I could tell if the red light was on.  The blue gave the palm a very mild glow that had me asking, is that all there is? I could not make out leafshapes in the darkness with the blue light  Then I went to green by itself and the palm leaves lit up in their glory with detail, it was hard to believe unless you conduct this experiment for yourself.  The green LED was brightest since to a first approximation all 3(?) watts were green light as passed the leaves while with the white light maybe 1 watt (lumen equivalent) was green light, 1 red and one blue(aapprox) and the red and blue light dont pass through the chlorohyll.  Here is the photosynthetic absorbance rate of chlorophyll, A, B and for carotenoids which are also significant.  Seems like a green and yellow combined will get you the most radiance per watt. 

[sonoranfans]

Of course you can use a 600 watt broad spectrum white bulb but ~ 400 watts equivalent in blue and red light is wasted when reflected on leaves.  5000 Kelvin in the figure below will get you the brightest image based on its green/yellow wavelength centroid.  None of these lights actually looks natural to me, kind of hard to do that with unnatural light to start with.  But better reflectance with less power makes for much less eyestrain and yet good illumination.  Trunks, especially white trunks, I do not want to illuminate with my spots since they would wash out the illumination in the leaves.  SO I just illuminate the crowns and my yard looks like a bunch of huge crowns suspended there.

 

[waykoolplantz]

pics please Tom

[NickJames]

[sonoranfans]

18 hours ago, waykoolplantz said:

pics please Tom

Sorry mike, I need a tripod for my camera as the light levels are very easy on the eyes but very tough on camera shutter speeds.  To get the "ghosty crown effect" overall light needs to be low and very directional, and white trunks should not be illuminated as they will dominate the aperature.  Its great for christmas and haloween, the bizzie and sabal look particularly spooky with their leafshapes.  These lights were LED's and just 3-6(?) watts but plenty to light up the crowns to a nice glow in the darkness.   I need to get a tripod for my Canon 60D and take some shots to see how they come out. 

[iDesign]

Still sooooo much more to do on this part of the yard, but seeing parts lit up at night is sure rewarding…

So far it’s mostly lighting the waterfall, palapa and ferns, but the Hyophorbe indica and Chambeyronia houailou can be seen as well. More palms hopefully going in this Spring. 🤞

[Kim]

No question, uplighting is dramatic for showing off palms. I put string lights on my palms for the holidays but overall I prefer darkness to see the stars.

[waykoolplantz]

not palms but dramatic

[Allen]

These are from last year.  They are blurry for some reason unless you click on them.  This is zone 7 so no uber tropicals

[Christopher Dillman]

Can anyone vouch for these on their larger trunk palms?

My issue is getting up lights high enough above crowding bird of paradise.

Cutting back the birds is a non-starter. Curious if anyone has used those ring lights. What I like about them.. they appear to not dig into the trunk.

 

 

[quaman58]

Some beautiful examples of lighting here to be sure. We recently had our Hardscape redone in the backyard and lighting was part of that. I would call it a medium high-grade of lights, not like resort quality or anything but better than the big box store stuff. The picture actually appears to be brighter than reality, but it’s beautiful effect. 

[tinman10101]

14 minutes ago, quaman58 said:

Some beautiful examples of lighting here to be sure. We recently had our Hardscape redone in the backyard and lighting was part of that. I would call it a medium high-grade of lights, not like resort quality or anything but better than the big box store stuff. The picture actually appears to be brighter than reality, but it’s beautiful effect. 

bret could you disclose the brand of lighting you used?  thanks .. they look awesome and i am sure your backyard looks like a resort at night. 

cheers

tin

[quaman58]

Tin, 

The system looks to be made by “brilliance” (brillianceled.com). It’s a single transformer that is driving about 26 lights (mostly up lights) as well as all the stair lights. It comes with a smartphone app that even I can figure out. Hope this helps a bit..

Bret

[NMPalmjunky]

I like the ice blue looks with my palms

[Than]

Sorry to be the negative one but isn't light pollution a concern? For humans but also for the fauna? I'd stick to only the most necessary lighting and even that, only when I am sitting at the garden. 

[Marius]

These Trithrinax campestris are softly lit by two nearby wall lights that are on for security.  It shows off their silvery colour beautifully. 

[Marius]

Dunno why the last one is upside down.