By Joe Provey
from Popular Mechanics, September, 2005

In some respects, installing landscape lighting is no different than other landscape design issues in that you design with the future in mind. "Install conduit under driveways or patios before paving or bricking, and have the ground-fault circuit-interrupter (GFCI) receptacles installed before getting started," advises Randall Whitehead, a landscape lighting designer in San Francisco. He adds, "Buy fixtures with more wattage capacity than you need, then increase wattage in the future by replacing smaller wattage lamps with higher-wattage ones [within the capacity of the transformer] as the plants mature." To avoid a monotonous-looking system, Whitehead also advises mixing fixture types, light patterns and fixture spacing.

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