Grow Lights Buying Guide

Grow Lights are used to help indoor plants grow stronger and healthier. They can even be used for indoor gardens, to produce herbs and vegetables, or to help flowering plants produce beautiful blossoms all year long. There are many different kinds of lights that can be used: incandescent, fluorescent and high-intensity discharge (HID) bulbs. Each type of bulb gives off a different colour from the spectrum of light, which will determine how a plant grows.

Incandescent Bulbs

Incandescent light bulbs give off red light but very little blue light. They also give off a lot of heat, so you have to be careful about how close they are to your plants. If the light bulbs are too close to your plants, it can cause the plant to wilt. If you place your plant very close to the bulbs, they can actually burn the leaves of the plant.

Fluorescent Bulbs

Fluorescent bulbs are inexpensive and last longer than incandescent bulbs. Fluorescent bulbs produce either a cool white light or a warm white light. The cool white light bulbs provide blue and yellow-green light, but no red light. Plants grown under these lights are stocky and may be stunted in growth. The warm white light bulbs provide lots of red light, but very little blue and green light. If you can, one option is to use one cool white and one warm white light bulb when growing plants to give them a good balance in the different colours of light they receive.

Another option is to use a full-spectrum fluorescent bulb. Each one of these light bulbs produces blue, green and red light to give the proper balance of light colours, like that found in nature. These light bulbs can be used for all plants.

High-intensity discharge (HID) Bulbs

HID bulbs are more expensive than fluorescent and even incandescent light bulbs. They use less electricity but they usually have higher watts, so you will have to be careful not to have too many of these lights running on the same circuit breaker in your house. So, who would use these lights? Well, commercial growers and serious horticulturalists generally use them since they emit more light than incandescent or fluorescent bulbs.

One type of HID bulb is the metal halide bulb, a favourite of serious indoor gardeners. These bulbs give off a bluish-white light that plants love. Plants grown under the metal halide light bulb are green, strong and very healthy. These light bulbs do not cause the plant to turn to seed or flower often, so they are best used for vegetables, such as lettuce, herbs and other leafy house plants.

Another type of HID bulb is the high-pressure sodium light bulb. They give off a yellow-orange light, similar to that found in the fall. This light makes plants produce seeds, flowers and fruits because they think that it is near the end of the growing season. They work well for tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and other flowering house plants. However, it is not good to use these lights all year long, as that will make the plant stems very weak and vulnerable.

Since metal halide bulbs and high-pressure sodium bulbs give off different colours in the light spectrum, you can use them alone or together. If using them together, start off with the metal halide bulbs to encourage seedlings to grow. Once the seedlings have matured, you can then switch to the high-pressure sodium bulb to encourage the plants to produce vegetables or gorgeous flowers.

Want an easy way to get started? Try the  Garden Starter System pictured above.  It is designed for simplicity, so that even beginning gardeners will be successful.  It grows twelve large seedlings at a time — enough to start a plentiful kitchen garden.  The large 4" x 4" APS growing cells hold plants until they are mature enough to go into the garden, so you avoid the effort (and the stress on the plant) of transplanting into a larger pot.  The one-gallon self-watering tray pampers seedlings with the right amount of moisture automatically, eliminating over- and under-watering that stresses plants.  Seedlings will thrive in the glow of the energy-efficient, full spectrum T-5 Grow Light, so bright that plants can't tell it from sunlight.

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