What Kinds of Light Do Plants Grow Better In?
Whether you are growing plants indoors or outdoors, the intensity, duration and quality of light a plant receives will determine how well it grows. Plants turn the light into energy for growth and flowering. Without adequate lighting, a plant will become spindly, droop and even die. To get your plant to grow better, know what kind of lights your plant needs. Does this Spark an idea?
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Outdoors
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Sunlight is the light that plants feed off naturally. Sunlight has the correct balance of red and blue rays--the rays a plant needs. When a plant gets the correct intensity of sunlight for the correct duration of time, the plant will grow better. However, too much sun can be as damaging as not enough. Make sure you are planting any outdoor plants in the appropriate sun exposure for better growth.
Indoors
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Plants grown indoors will do better in a window facing south. This will be the most intense sunlight available indoors. Eastern and western windows will only offer 60 percent of the light a southern window does; northern windows only provide 20 percent. To increase the intensity of light for your houseplants, place them on a light-colored, reflective surface. You can also make sure to space them out, ensuring every plant is able to get enough light for growth.
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Artificial Lighting
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To supplement houseplants that are getting inadequate sunlight, you can use artificial lights. Incandescent lights are artificial lights with a lot of red rays. They are hot lights that need to be carefully placed--too close and they will hurt your plants. Incandescent lights are short-lived and use a lot of energy compared to other lighting options. Fluorescent lights are a cooler source of light. They last about 10 times longer than an incandescent light and are three times as energy efficient. Fluorescent lights supply your plant with more blues and not so many red rays.
Fluorescent Lighting
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When choosing just one type of lighting for indoor planting, fluorescent lighting is the better light for growing plants. To ensure that you are giving your plants the appropriate intensity of light from your fluorescent lights, light your low-light plants (plants such as spider plants, ferns, lucky bamboo and golden pothos vine) with just one fluorescent tube. Your medium-light plants (plants such as African violets, aloe vera, palms and orchids) will need more, requiring two tubes of fluorescent lighting. High-light plants (plants such as chrysanthemums, poinsettias, jade plants and geraniums) will not do well with only artificial lighting, but if this is all you can give them, supply them with three or four tubes of fluorescent lighting.
Considerations
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If your houseplants have little or no natural light, better than giving your houseplants either incandescent or fluorescent lights is to give them some of both. Your plants will grow better with 30 watts of incandescent lighting for every 100 watts of fluorescent lighting.
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- Photo Credit em connell mccarty
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Comments
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refuse2fail
Mar 01, 2010
"Your plants will grow better with 30 watts of incandescent lighting for every 100 watts of fluorescent lighting." This is a really good article; right up until the very last sentence. A 100 watt floro will will produce more lumens than a 30 watt incandescent. It will also produce a cooler light, better on the spectrum for vegetative growth. And lastly, you can put floros MUCH closer to your plants without burning them, maximizing the light that hits them.
