The Importance Of Lighting To Indoor Plants
As a hardcore indoor gardener I want the best for my indoor babies. I would imagine that you do too if you really care for your indoor garden. One of the aspects of indoor gardening that you cannot get away from is lighting for your plants. From seedlings to mature adult plants, botany life cannot live without proper light.
If you are a beginner and would like to know more about lighting in general you can read my post on the Top 4 Indoor Gardening Tips that Every Beginner Should Know.
What Are The Signs Of A Good Grow Light
The best grow lights share several characteristics, if I can put it that way. The first one is that they generate light at the frequencies that support plant growth at whatever phase you want to foster. In this regard, bright lights don’t matter as much as lights that put out more red light to accelerate leaf growth and vegetative phase growth along with some blue light for strong stems and overall plant health.
The overall luminosity matters, especially if growing sun-loving plants, but there’s a point where you can have too much. You need grow lights that will put out the energy you need without too much heat, since that can dry out or burn plants. The ideal grow lights will put out light but barely any heat, since this is correlated to good energy efficiency.
Well made grow lights such as the Galaxyhydro 300W have simple hardware where you get both the lights and everything you need to mount it and run it in one box. The ideal grow lights let you plug them in to the wall and be done, instead of having to figure out where to put cables, how to connect fans and whether or not you can plug in timers and reflectors.
There is one reason why we can’t say there is one perfect grow lamp, and that is the fact that the best grow lights for your situation depend on the application. Different grow lights provide differing coverage areas and are often designed for optimizing growth at specific stages. For that reason, we can recommend several good grow lights but not a single, ideal grow light for every single use case.
300 Watt Grow Light by JHOTEC
This full spectrum grow light is good for plants in the vegetative stage like seedlings and flowering plants. It mimics natural sunlight except for the UV light. It has both strong light and deeper than average penetration.
This particular grow light is energy efficient, and the light gets amplified when you switch between growth or bloom mode (though you can do both at once). This means you could have it put out only red light when encouraging micro-vegetables and seedlings and use less power than a grow light that puts out predominately blue light.
This grow light covers a 2 foot square growing area when two feet above the plants. Its maximum coverage is 3’ square if you have plants that don’t need high intensity light or you’re using the grow light as a supplement to delay blooms.
The Grow Light by JHOTEC comes with built in fans to keep them from overheating. The only downside of these models is the tendency to burn out bulbs rather quickly. Conversely, you can connect them in a daisy chain fashion so you only need a single timer to control a whole series of the lights.
The Current Price and Amazon Rating is listed below:
EnerEco 100 Watt Grow Light Bulb
This is not a complete grow light per se, but it is bulbs that I have bought to replace burnt out ones. I have to say, they pack a punch. The 100 Watt bulb is designed for almost any application. It is good for seedlings, vegetable growth, hydroponics and greenhouses. It puts out roughly three times as much red light as blue light, fostering leaf growth without resulting in weak plants.
The EnerEco bulb is energy efficient ad has excellent heat dissipation. Consider this bulb as a good light source for a single large plant or 2’ square area of seedlings. I’ve personally used it as supplementary light for plants receiving natural light to accelerate growth or delay flowering.
Another option would be to use a network of these bulbs in an enclosed area where no natural light gets in. This really comes in handy especially if you are doing your growing in a basement where there are no windows at all. I recommend that you do not handle these bulbs or install them in the socket without proper eye protection.
The Current Price and Amazon Rating is listed below:
GrowLED LED Indoor Garden Light
I remember when I started my indoor gardening endeavors and started using indoor garden lighting I started with something similar to this…(Nostalgia is setting in). This is great for beginners or those just getting started with indoor gardening/hydroponics.
The GrowLED indoor garden light as I mentioned is designed for novices. Its clean, minimalist aesthetic makes it perfect for putting in a windowsill or sitting on the kitchen counter as you grow sprouts, micro-vegetables or herbs.
The broad spectrum white light is safe to put in the open, a strong contrast to other grow lights you can’t risk the kids looking at. However, that doesn’t mean you should stare at the bulbs.
It comes with a timer for 16 hours on and 8 hours off to fuel plant growth. Unfortunately you can’t dim the lights on this unit. According to user reviews it is best that you don’t put it right next to the sink where it could get really wet. Light sprays of water as you mist the plants to maintain the right humidity or splashed water as you do dishes is fine and won’t hurt the electrical parts of the unit.
It seems that the main downside of this unit is that the manufacturer shows the lights as being part of an entire kit when in reality it doesn’t come with pots or containers for the plants which is a bummer to say the least.
The Current Price and Amazon Rating is listed below:
Black Aspect 20W Luxury LED Grow Light
There are times we want grow lights that don’t look like industrial grow lights. In comes the Black Aspect brand luxury grow light. This 20 Watt LED grow light looks like a classic black hanging lamp while it produces supplemental lights for anything from potted plants to dwarf trees.
This unit is capable of covering a small area suitable for a few small plants or one larger one. One benefit of this model is that it runs cool enough that it doesn’t need a fan, which is perfect for putting in the corner with a plant that needs extra light without looking like an actual grow light. Note, that a 40 watt model is available, and the same grow light comes in white and silver so you can find something that suits your décor.
Seriously, when I saw that someone had actually come up with something like this I knew I had to get one for myself because that would give me the opportunity to have plants growing upstairs without having it look like it. I highly recommend it even though it’s a little pricey. Here’s a picture of my setup with this light.
The Current Price and Amazon Rating is listed below:
Hgrope 14W Indoor Grow Light Bar
This indoor grow light bar not only is convenient, but is a very affordable way to get several lights in one place without much hassle. The Hgrope Light Bar puts out 20 watts of light and generates red light, blue light and even UV light. It comes with two separate rows of bulbs, each on their own flexible arms.
These LED grow lights are perfect supplemental lights, since you can position them to help a specific bunch of flowers or any level of the under-layer of any plant.
As I mentioned above you can use them as mobile supplementary light sources as well such as providing some extra light when the autumn summer sun isn’t giving your herb garden enough light or the plants on your desk seem to be suffering.
You can even choose whether to run one or two of the rows of lights. I’ve managed to put about 6 of these together to cover a big area of plants when I first started indoor gardening, but quickly realized that this defeats the purpose of the mobility aspect that these lights were originally made for.
Another cool aspect of these lights is that they intentionally generate heat, making them a good choice as a supplementary light and heat for a single planter if that is all you will be using it for.
The Current Price and Amazon Rating is listed below:
