AboutMarc Chapelle, ASLA Expertise As a licensed Landscape Architect, I am available to answer general questions about style and design, ideas and suggestions for site amenities, larger site-planning issues, or recreational and park design. I prefer you ask somebody else why your petunias are not as perky as they should be...I'd LOVE to tell you how can use those petunias to increase your home's value!
Experience Member, American Society of Landscape Architects(ALSA); My clients are mostly contractors, developers and local civil engineering/architecture firms, plus the occasional homeowner. I am currently located in the dry Great Basin area (Reno/Sparks), so use of landscape materials OTHER than plants is emphasized. As a licensed Landscape Architect on the East and West Coasts, I have been in practice over 18 years. My website: DesertLA.com
Question We have a twenty foot flagpole that we wish to illuminate. Will a 50 watt halogen floodlight provide enough light? The streetlight is nearby, so the area is not totally dark.
Answer Proper flag etiquette dictates that if you are to leave a flag out over-night, it is to be illuminated, so good for you! You must have been a boy scout.
I'd personally install a fixture that can take up to 150 watts, and play around with the different types of bulbs available. At our Church, the 35-foot steeple is illuminated with three 150-watt fixtures on two sides, and you can barely see it at night - but I do live in a Casino town, so there is lots of competition!
And, in many urban areas there are "dark sky" ordinances that prohibit you from "poluting" with lights outside or on a structure such as a flag. These regulations are more for things like empty parking lots being lit up all night, but some ordinances also dictate porch lights and landscape lights - Such as a historic district or in an up-scale subdivision.
If you live in a city or community with a home-owner’s association, please check with them first, before going the expense of installing lights that you cannot use. If you are a rural dweller, you're probably safe from the light police.
