Will this work for lighting for these plants? I was thinking since the plants are in the basement and there is almost no light through the 2 small Windows I'd give them a little light per day but I don't know how to determine which plants need what lighting per day? Is this light too close to the plants? I added pic..
Also I was thinking this would be enough for lighting for these plants but when Im rooting plants and is colder in the basement I'd use heating rocks to keep root warm.. maybe in a fish tank or large area I could keep warm..will this work. I put my vases in side a fish tank and I put the rooted Persians Shields coleus n in it and a heating pad in there it got warm , coleus was looking good and 2 pieces of lucky bamboo seemed ok then I removed the heating pad and the plants remained inside the tank for bout 4/5 days n then I noticed the rooted Persians Shields leaves were turning black. I believe I almost lost them. Was this due to lack of air. It had a screen top..the coleus was fine n bamboo looked fine also. Just PS did that n I removed the black leaves n they seem perfectly fine now! Thank goodness. So is everything Im doing just wrong. I don't wanna give up but Im worried Im not making my plants happy. Im losing another one now! I don't understand why.

Hm, I'm no expert on indoor supplemental lighting, Pamela but pretty sure that's not nearly enough light. I think you'd need 3 or 4 more of those to give all your plants any kind of a light boost. Didn't you say you have 12 pots at the moment? That's going to make it way too hot for them, too. Probably present a fire hazard as well.

Think about where these plants grow in nature. They have bright sunlight coming from above all day long (well some of them like some shade). But most of them are tropicals so really strong sunlight. That one little bulb shining sideways on them isn't going to be nearly enough even if you leave it on for 15 hours per day.

Regular room temperature is fine for most indoor plants through the winter. Unless it's really cold in your room there, I would take that light back and get a real "Grow light". Honestly, I think you'll do a lot better, both for energy usage and for better lighting, if you can set up a fluorescent fixture with good "Grow light" daylight bulbs for your plant area. You need to have them turn on every day for at least 8 hours, and keep an eye on the plants because they may want more.

Here's my setup for starting seeds - one little fluorescent tube on a stand will light one tray of 72 seedlings. The light needs to be as close to the plants as it can be and it's on a timer so it comes on at 7am and turns off at 11pm.


You need something a lot bigger and stronger light than this for your big tropical plants.

I agree with Elaine that the plants need more light... depending on how much you want to invest in it, there are lots of newer options for plant lights; if you use ordinary fluorescent lights, they need to be very close to the plants, and on for 12-16 hours per day.

Im gonna figure this out one way or another. im headed back to store in the morning. think ill take back the 2 light fixtures and get a 18 inch shop light fixture and 18 bulb for growing but the issue was i couldnt get any good help at the store and the lights didnt read grow lights, so im going to try again.

Pamela, get the 4ft. shop light fixture - the bulbs are more readily available and that way you're sure to have enough light for all your plants. I'm just thinking that the way you're going, you are going to have more plants and need more light, so "go big!".

The reptile lamps really won't do much except heat the place up.

Thanks chick!!

I would go with a T5 HO fixture and bulb, either 3 or 4 foot. My plants are growing under them. These lights produce very little heat. A 3 foot T5HO with reflector runs about $40 at Amazon.

How about if add these two to the ones I had already

Pamela you're nuts to mess around with little lamps and bulbs. Get a big shop light fixture and some big bright fluorescent bulbs that say "daylight" or "sunlight".

Those 48 inch shop fixtures will give more light for less initial investment, AND less ongoing consumption of electricity.

But mainly, they will put out more light, which the plants really need.

I've used a few dim, relatively inefficient CFL "spot bulbs", but only to start seedlings and only because I couldn't figure a way to hang the 4 foot shop fixtures. (And I already had some bright CFL bulbs and a "pole lamp".)

I thought it work considering Kmart wouldn't let me return the clamp fixtures I bought there. So I bought these because I read someone was using these for indoor growing
.

I wouldn't have away to hang the shop light where I can get the plants under the light also . I wanted to use the shop lights it was my very first idea but I could not because of space issues.

Pamela, if you think back to when you were in school you would (I assume, I didn't go through the American school system) have learned about photosynthesis, the way plants use light to make their food. The light they need is in specific wavelengths. So they need enough light in the right wavelengths to grow and even stay alive. It's even more critical if you want them to flower because with many plants that not only depends on the brightness of the light but also the number of hours of light per day. There are also "sun" plants and "shade" plants. Sun plants need much brighter light while shade plants need less and can be damaged by too much light.

So what I'm trying to say here is that the amount of light is critical to the types of plants you can winter indoors. It is possible to rig up a shop light fitting on a table but if you need to have the plants scattered around on shelves etc. because of limited floor space that isn't going to help.

If you are limited to using E27 base screw in bulbs I would look at the LED bulbs at Amazon, I have this 36W bulb and it provides a lot of light and good plant growth.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01FWZVBIC/

I sure understand "using what you already have" and "how am I gonna hang this big thing THERE??!??"

I think it's a good point that some plants need more light than others, especially overwintering indoors. I wouldn't know, I only start seedlings under lights, and they want all the light they can get.

The higher-powered CFL screw-in bulbs do get expensive.

You can buy a couple of 45w SMD lamps of ebay for like 10 pounds or a little over 10 bucks if state side they do pretty good I've been using one for some of my plants and just one grow lamp almost lights my whole living room. I'd recommend you get one or two of those.

RickCorey said:I sure understand "using what you already have" and "how am I gonna hang this big thing THERE??!??"

I went through the same thing, I couldn't reasonably hang the shop light type fixture from the ceiling (old house, high ceiling). The quick and easy way was to use an old table, a couple of car jack thingys as in the pic below, one at each end of the table, set a length of wood, broom handle, whatever across them and then suspend the shop light on chains from that. Of course one can buy table units that do the job more aesthetically but do they ever cost a lot!

https://www.google.ca/search?q...

Some of the single smaller lights would work for individual plants, as was suggested earlier, but if I understand correctly lighting is required for at least a dozen plants?

I love the car jacks!

I was thinking about suggesting assembling a big frame out of PVC pipe and PVC connectors, like a huge pup tent skeleton that would tower over the table and allow lights to be hung from the upper cross-piece ... but it would be an aesthetically dubious decorating decision.

Especially for one's living room.

I must admit I do worry about having grow lamps on at night in my living room as they create a bit of a glow from the outside, I just hope nobody thinks I'm growing something other than legal plants but oh well it will be a laugh if cops come knocking on my door