Growing plants indoors, without too much natural light, can sometimes be a pain. Most plants need light to grow, but how can you do that in your apartment with little to no light?
Today, we’re going to learn something new and talk about what types of artificial light for growing plants you can use, and whether it’s even worth using them.
Without any further due, let’s begin!
Types of Artificial Growing Lights?
There are several different types of artificial light for growing houseplants, which are useful in different situations and growing conditions. The most common ones are:
- Incandescent artificial growing lights
- Fluorescent lights
- Halogen growing lights
- LED lights for plants
- Horticultural artificial growing lights
Let’s explore each of these categories, learn about their specific characteristics, and see when each of them is used.
1. Incandescent Growing Lights
Incandescent lights should be used not to close to the plants, since if they are placed close to it, they could cause burns.
It happens because this type of growing light emits a higher amount of red wavelength, which is good for blooming plants.
The best ratio for mixing with other light spectrums is to use a third of incandescent and two-thirds of fluorescent light.
2. Fluorescent Lights
Fluorescent lights are some of the most economical grow lights for indoor plants. They can easily fit into commonly found neutral sockets, making them a bit diverse. Also, they are very efficient when it comes to energy consumption.
The thing about this type of grow lights is that you can put them closer to the leaves, since they are not too warm, and won’t cause harm to your plant’s foliage.
To ensure the maximum effect, it’s recommended to put fluorescent light about a half to one meter away from the plant itself.
3. Halogen Growing Lights
Halogen artificial growing lighting for plants is a pretty good choice if you need to provide a complete spectrum to your plants.
However, it can be compared to incandescent light because it also produces a lot of heat, which means that you shouldn’t put it near the foliage.
4. LED Lights for Plants
Next to the fluorescent light for plants, another very energy-efficient choice is to use LED grow lights. The trick with this type of light is that it is highly-customizable, so you can find many different lightbulbs for it.
Therefore, in order to completely satisfy your plant’s needs for light, you will have to make a balance between bulbs that produce both blue and red wavelengths.
5. Horticultural Artificial Growing Lights
Last but not least, we have horticultural artificial growing lights, that are extremely useful in the early stages of plant propagation, or during the blooming phase.
A lot of garden experts use them when they’re creating hybrid plants, aka combining different types of plants to create a new subspecies.
However, they are also quite useful when it comes to blooming different types of houseplants, like, for instance, African violets.
Pros and Cons of Using Artificial Growing Lights
Now that we know what are the most common types of grow lights, let’s explore the pros and cons of using artificial growing lights.
Pros:
- Grow lights let you grow your plant anywhere you want – they are extremely useful if you want to grow plants in a closed environment, with little or no natural light, such as dark apartments, or garage.
- They give much-needed light to the plant – artificial grow lights can provide much-needed light for the plant, especially if there is not enough natural light source. Also, they are very different from normal lightbulbs because the quality of their light is much higher than of usual lighting. This is exactly what plants, especially indoor plants, need.
- Artificial lights can save you some money – this type of light can actually be quite cost-effective if done right. Using grow lights allows you to control certain terms under which your plant will grow. This means that you can evade certain growing costs, with the right timing. Also, some grow lights, such as LED lights, are very energy-efficient, which will save you some money you would spend on energy consumption.
- You can completely control the growth of your plant – with artificial grow lights, you can create a completely controlled environment for your plants to live in, which is very important if you grow your plants indoors.
- They can look stylish – apart from just being useful in a practical way, grow lights can also be aesthetically appealing, and they can bring life and joy to your home.
Cons:
- They can also be expensive – even if they can save you some money in the long run, artificial grow lights for plants are usually quite expensive, especially the ones of the highest quality. If you choose cheaper options, then your energy consumption will suffer.
- There might be a need for several types of grow lights – for the plants to successfully do photosynthesis, you need to provide them with two types of wavelengths: blue and red. Most people like to use fluorescent grow lights for this purpose. However, they have a flaw, which is that their light output level is pretty vague, so you often need to use more than one grow light, which is not ideal, especially for your wallet. Also, different types of plants need certain levels of wavelengths, so it’s not always the same spectrum of grow lights that you need to look for.
- Grow lights can cause certain problems – depending on the type, grow lights can also cause problems with too much heat, too little light, and not enough balanced light distribution.
Conclusion
There you go, folks!
Today, we’ve learned what are the most important types of artificial grow lights for plants, and what are the positives and negatives of using them to grow plants indoors.