Best Light For Indoor Garden

When your windows let in less light in the winter, you may worry about whether your houseplants are getting the light and nourishment they need to stay healthy and grow. Some houseplants may be able to grow well with less light in the winter, while others may need more care to keep growing well. Still, others, like garden seedlings and flower plants, may need more light than what is available indoors. Check out this post for the best indoor plants.

Read on to learn more about the best light for indoor gardens and what type of light or color of the bulb is ideal for growing plants.

What Type of Light is Best for Growing Plants Indoor?

Incandescent Lights

Incandescent light is suitable for lighting a space and growing plants that don’t need a lot of sunlight, like ferns, vines, and dracaenas. They don’t work as well when it comes to growing plants that require a lot of light. Visible light only makes up about 10% of these lights’ total energy. The other 90% of the energy is turned into heat. They are the least expensive option for grow lights, but they are also the least popular since they give off a lot of heat and don’t do their job very well. However, they’re the cheapest option for grow lights.

Fluorescent Lights

Fluorescent lights don’t give off much heat, and the spectrum of light they give off is good enough for plants to grow. They often look like tube lights or reflectors for compact fluorescent lighting (CFL). If you want to grow plants, the environment should use fluorescent lights instead of incandescent lights because they give off less heat. However, it often costs more to grow plants under fluorescent lighting.

LED Grow Lights-Hanging grow light for indoor garden

LED grow lights are the newest and most advanced lighting equipment you can buy today. They are efficient in energy usage, don’t give out much heat, and provide a good balance of visible light. Compared to fluorescent or incandescent lighting, growing plants at home with LED lights is the most likely to work, the most efficient, and the most convenient for the end user. LED lights are great for growing plants because they have the right color temperature.

Things to look for when buying grow lights.

1. Lights Spectrum: although there are single light color bulbs as listed below for growing purposes you will want a Full Spectrum Bulb.
2. Wattage: The wattage of grow lights varies greatly. Make sure you have the necessary electric system to support the grow lights.
3. Size: If you plan to grow a lot of plants you will want to make sure the lights are long enough to cast an even light over all the plants. To much light to the side of the plants will cause them to grow with a lean.
4. Extras: You will want timers for your grow lights. Turning them on every day will become frustrating.

What Color Bulb is Best for Indoor Plants?

When choosing the right color of the bulb for your indoor plants, you have three options: Blue, red, and green. When a plant is exposed to blue, red, or green light, it responds in a different way to each of them.

Blue color led light

When plants are shown more blue light, the emerald green color of their leaves gets even brighter. Blue light is essential for controlling how fast plants grow because it helps them build strong stems and makes chlorophyll, which is needed for a lot of things that are going on inside the plant.

Red color led grow light

Plants need red light to help flowers bloom, but if they get too much red light, their leaves will dry out, and the plant will die. The presence of blue light helps plants grow and stay healthy, while the presence of red light helps plants blooming reach their full potential.

Green color light bulb

When plants are fully grown, they need a lot less green light than they did when they were younger. Several studies have found that it is suitable for a plant while it is growing but no longer suitable for the plant after it has sprouted. Instead of taking in the green light themselves, green plants send it back into the environment. The green color of plants comes from the presence of this pigment. To put it another way, the plant’s chlorophyll can quickly absorb red and blue light, but it has trouble doing the same with green light.

Its important to note that most lights designed as Grow Lights will have all three light spectrums.

Here are 7 full spectrum grow lights worth considering.

Can Plants Get Too Much Artificial Light?

Most houseplants can grow well if they get 12-16 hours of artificial light daily from fluorescent lamps. If a plant doesn’t get enough light, its leaves may be long and thin. If, on the other hand, the plant is exposed to too much light, it will lose its color and shrink, the soil will dry out, and the leaves will burn. Like people, plants need dark hours daily to recharge and get ready for the next day. For more information on using lighting cycles for indoor plants, check out this post.

If you give your plants eight to twelve hours of darkness each day, you can stop them from making new growth and provide them with a chance to rest and recover so they can make flower buds. For a Christmas cactus to be able to grow flower buds, it needs to be kept in the dark for more than 13 hours a day, seven days a week, for two months.

If you don’t put the Christmas cactus to sleep for the right amount of time, it won’t bloom during the winter holidays. With the help of a programmable timer, you may be able to control how much light and darkness your houseplants get.

Timers are great for controlling how much light your plants get. 4 great affordable timers are:

1. BN-Link Indoor Timer
2. Fosmon 24hr. Programable (paid link)
3. GE 24hr. Heavy Duty Plugin
4. Indoor 24-Hour Mechanical Outlet Timer (paid link)

Grow lights are a great way to add to the natural light inside and keep plants healthy all year long. To give your plants the best growing conditions, you should choose the correct light bulb for the job, either one that gives off light from all over the spectrum or mixes red and blue light.

What kind of light do I need to get a vegetable plant grow indoors?

Getting a vegetable plant to grow under a led light can be hard. You need a full spectrum led light. Depending on the vegetable your setup may require several hanging grow light bulb stands. When shopping look a a full spectrum led light. If you want to go with a light bulb that’s possible too just make sure it is a grow light. A regular bulb wont help the plant grow. Led lights are generally a better solution as there not as electric usage heavy. Led grow lights also cover more area generally. 

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