Garden grow lights might be necessary if you want to have a productive indoor herb garden. By not using garden lighting effects you may cause your herb plants to become wilty, or lose their color, the plants will not blossom or produce fruit. Garden lights are significant for an indoor herb garden to flourish; inadequate indoor grow lights can cause a plant to fail in bearing fruits or blossom and change your results in yellow-colored or brown. There are several kinds of indoor garden grow lights that are used for different styles of your indoor garden.
Indoor Herb Garden Grow Lights vs. Sunlight
Indoor garden grow lights can substitute organic sunlight or supplement the light required for growing. The indoor plants that have a problem getting access to that good ole sunshine might benefit from synthetic growing lights. The sunlight that plants use changes the carbon dioxide into the sugars that are needed for proper growth.
These plants such as vegetables, natural herbs, and fruit trees will need from 6 to 8 hours of full sun each day for them to bear fruits or bloom. This task is generally difficult unless you are regularly moving your indoor garden from room to room or window sill to window sill. This is the reason we give our indoor herb plants the additional synthetic grow lights to increase healthy growing.
What are the different types of lighting systems?
Luminescent lighting is a form of grow lighting that is very common because it provides a good source of lighting for your plant without taking the risk of losing them a lot of mild for your vegetation without the risk of losing them and they are not costly to purchase.
Fluorescent light bulb marked T-5 is an adequate growing light bulb because even though it is generally has less “light reach”, it provides a more powerful, concentrated light. This kind of light is excellent for indoor herb plants that like to have some shade. Indoor gardens that have vegetables that include lettuce and spinach and indoor herb gardens prefer to have this kind of lighting effect.
HID or high intense lighting is a very efficient lighting system for indoor gardening. They are available in two different types: HPS or high pressure sodium and MH or steel halide.
HPS are used most often used as plant grow lights because they provide a red or orange light which motivates the plants to flower and bloom. MH garden grow lights are best suitable for exciting foliage and they accelerate growth due to the blue spectrum lighting they release.
Incandescent bulbs are generally more costly and not as efficient as other kinds of grow lighting systems. These lights also produce more heat and if the vegetation is too close to them they will burn the leaves. Incandescents are best if used for highlighting plants instead of helping them develop.
A few rules of thumb:
- 25-watt incandescent should be no nearer than one foot from your plants
- 100-watt bulb, two feet away from the plants
- 150-watt 3 feet away to prevent burning your indoor herb plants.
Mercury vapor lighting can be very costly if your indoor herb garden grows a huge number of plants. The mercury vapor lights will provide more light and less warmth than the incandescent. This means they are great lights for any kind of indoor plants. LED or light-emitting diode inside grow lights are the newest style for inside plant growth. These grow lights do not send out any destructive heat and will release more light per wattage; due to this, these grow lights are able to be placed nearer to the indoor plant and do not cause damage. The grow lighting you use should be placed as near as possible to the plant and should have the flexibilty to be raised as the plant grows.
Most of the indoor herb plants will need grow lighting from 12 to 16 hours each day to help motivate leaves to develop.
MH grow lights need to be running 18 to 24 hours each day.
HPS grow light you will only need 12 hours each day for budding and blooming.
Are your plants getting enough light?
The way your indoor herb plants are growing tells you if they are getting sufficient lighting. If your plants are not getting enough sunlight you will notice signs which may include:
- Long stem lengths between the leaves very little or no development of the plant
- The leaves have a smaller footprint sized than normal and there are no buds or blossoms.
- Leaves on some herb plant might change to a yellow-color or they are a dried brown color and fall off ahead of time.
If any of the signs happen you may need relocate your herb plants to a different window sill or buy better indoor herb garden grow light. A place to start is Home Depot or Lowes for all lighting parts.
Happy Gardening!