LED Landscape Lighting Types: What Canadian Buyers Should Check Before Ordering

CONCORD, ON, 2026-08-20 - Outdoor lighting isn't one product. Six LED landscape lighting types cover almost every residential and commercial job: path lights, spot lights, in-ground lights, hardscape and step lights, wall-mount fixtures, and bollards. Picking the wrong one is the most common reason a finished installation looks unbalanced or leaves dark gaps. Votatec, a Canadian LED lighting manufacturer and wholesale distributor, has set out what each type is for and the four specs buyers should check before they order.

What are the six LED landscape lighting types?

Path lights. Short posts with a shaded top that throw light downward onto walkways, driveways and garden borders. Spacing matters more than brightness. Too close and you get a runway, too far and you get puddles of light with dark gaps between them.

Spot lights. Narrow-beam fixtures aimed at something specific: a tree trunk, a stone facade, an entrance feature, a flagpole. Aim them up for drama, down from a soffit for a softer wash. Beam angle does most of the work here.

In-ground lights. Recessed into the ground or a hard surface so the housing sits flush and only the light shows. Often called well lights. Good for uplighting trees and walls where a visible fixture would be in the way. Sizes matter for the core hole, which is why 1.5 inch and 3 inch versions exist.

Hardscape and step lights. Small, low-output fixtures built into retaining walls, stair risers, seat walls and columns. Their job is safety and edge definition, not area lighting. A stair run with lit risers reads as safe in a way a single overhead floodlight never does.

Wall and surface-mount fixtures. These mount to a wall, a column or a stone face with a bracket. Worth stressing, because catalogue photos often show these on a ground spike. If a fixture ships with a bracket, it belongs on a vertical surface.

Bollards. Taller than path lights, usually 24 to 42 inches, throwing light in a full or partial circle. The commercial choice for parking areas, campus walkways, plazas and multi-unit properties where a low path light would get lost or kicked.

Why does the cable rating matter more than the fixture?

Here's the detail that catches people out. Look at a reel of low-voltage landscape cable sold in Canada and you'll often see 150V printed on the jacket or the spec sheet. That's the US application ceiling. The Canadian listing for the same wire is 30V.

Cable carrying a cUL listing under C22.2 No. 35 is listed here as a 30V extra-low-voltage cable, and distributors on both sides of the border often print it as "150 Volt UL / 30 Volt CSA". Anyone sizing a run off the larger number is working from the wrong document. Extra-low-voltage lighting systems sit in Section 30 of the Canadian Electrical Code, Rules 30-1200 through 30-1208, and that's the reference that should set the spec.

"Most of the outdoor lighting failures we get asked about aren't fixture failures," Votatec says. "They're a transformer sized off the wrong voltage figure, a run of wire too thin for its length, or a fixture sitting in a spot that floods every spring."

Does IP65 mean the fixture is waterproof?

No, and this is the second recurring mistake. IP65 means a fixture resists dust and low-pressure water jets from any direction. It doesn't mean the fixture can sit underwater. An IP65 light handles rain, snow and a garden hose. Drop the same fixture into a pond, a fountain, or a low spot where meltwater pools every March, and water gets in. Immersion needs IP67 or IP68, and buyers should ask for the rating per model rather than assuming a whole range shares one.

Two more checks round it out. Transformer capacity: total the fixture wattage, then leave headroom, because a transformer running at its ceiling on day one has nothing left when a client adds two more path lights next season. Colour temperature: warmer light around 3000K suits residential and hospitality settings, cooler light suits security and commercial frontages, and selectable-CCT fixtures cover both from one part number.

Timing matters in Canada. Trenching, transformer mounting and cable runs all get harder once ground frost arrives, so late summer and early autumn are the last comfortable window for permanent outdoor work in most of the country.

Votatec stocks all six types. Its low voltage landscape lighting range covers path lights, spot lights, in-ground spot lights in 1.5 inch and 3 inch sizes, hardscape and step lights, wall-mount fixtures and bollards, most of them field-selectable across 3000K, 4000K and 5000K at 12V. The company also stocks landscape lighting transformers and cUL-listed low-voltage cable, so a contractor can source the transformer, the wire and the fixtures from one supplier and keep the whole run on one set of specifications.

Pricing is quoted per project. Contractors, distributors and municipal buyers can request a quote through votatec.ca.

Votatec is a Canadian LED lighting wholesaler and distributor based in Vaughan (Concord), Ontario. We supply CSA-certified and DLC-listed LED fixtures for commercial, industrial, and residential projects across Canada. As a direct importer, we offer