Light-Indoor plants

Most of my plants are in a south facing window and get direct morning sun up to about 11:30 am which is pushing it to the limit most plants in south windows getting direct sun. I am lucky to have a tree out front that blocks the sun starting then so the hard mid-day sun and on does not burn my leaves. Being in zone 7b also means the sun isn’t as strong as lets say 10-11am in zone 8 and up. Zones can be defined on the terms and definitions page. 

When you start looking for plants and their care you will see a few terms when it comes to light and what your plants need. This is often confusing and conditional. I’ll do my best to break it down as much as I can. Trust me I have lost many a plant to light both to much and not enough without realizing it.

When we think of plants, we think SUN! That’s how they photosynthesize and spring and summer seem to make everything pop off. While this is true not all light is equal. 

Plant light needs are broken down into 4 levels, bright direct, bright indirect, medium and low. 

Artificial light AKA grow lights will be discussed at the end. Artificial is a funny way to describe them given its actual light but I guess non sun light was to wordy lol. 

This isn’t the bible on light terms and is a general clarification as it will vary depending on where you fall on the globe.ie…  direct sun in Maine won’t be as strong as Florida at any given hour of the day.

 

Bright direct light- Bright light that is light from a window that is south or west facing and not blocked by sheers or trees. This is the strongest type of light you will come across in your indoor growing areas and often means plants needing Bright direct light are placed within 3ft of these windows. Most of your leafy plants can’t handle the heat and power of these rays and will burn. Cacti and succulents thrive in it. A sheer can greatly help break those burning rays and allow you to safely grow your bight indirect plants with some monitoring and care. 

South Facing windows. 

West facing windows noon- sundown super strong light. 

Direct morning sun is not nearly as strong in most areas and most plants can handle this. Be wary the farther south you go as the sun is stronger and the less morning sun they may be able to handle. As mentioned before my plants are in south facing windows and doing great but as the summer rolls in its getting hotter and may effect them on other ways. Updates as summer comes though.

 

Bright indirect light- Consistent and bright throughout the day but unlike bright direct light, the sun is not beaming in the window for hours on end. Generally this is a bright area where sun isn't directly hitting the plants. Plants in east windows or in south windows placed away forth window a bit. A little direct morning sun isn’t bad and In my experience, helps boost my plants. 

East facing windows

 

Medium light- Constant all day light that isn’t directly beaming down on the leaves. Plants are placed 4feet or more from windows but no farther than half way across the room. Weird I know but try moving your plant a little here and there to find the Goldie locks zone for your plant. 

East Facing windows

Plants 4ft – half way away across the room from the window

 

Low light- Does not mean no light or long periods of darkness. Plants that are around home lighting, lamps, in bathrooms with windows and places that are more than half way across the room from a window or are up higher than the area/angle the beams of light are come in a window.

To determine what direction your windows face pul out your phone and use the compass app or pick one up for as cheap as you can.

In general South East facing windows are optimal for getting great light.

 I have seen the question asked "Can a light can be left on 24hrs a day for more growth?" No, plants need a dark period to complete photosynthesis. At night they should be in the dark just like you.

Artificial lights,

I have had great success supplementing my plants with LED and incandescent lights. 

I am by no means an expert on this but I will share what I know from what I have personally experienced and researched. I am not a nursery..... yet, nor do I grow cannabis that demands copious amounts of light. Those requirements are beyond the scope of what you will find here. This blog for now is for hobbyists and beginners. 

If you grow orchids these may be your best option if you want to fine tune the light to maximize growth and flowering. I have a south window which would be way to much direct light for most orchids.

 

Incandescent light bulbs work well but will get very hot and thus raising the temp of the room especially smaller areas. They are also not as energy efficient. For these I would say use them if you are in a pinch as they are easily found at cheaper prices. Do not let your plants get to close or they will burn from heat.  

incandescent

 

LED- These can be expensive but don’t raise the temp to much. I read articles saying they won’t  raise temps at all but I can attest after tracking temps they have in my room which is 10x12ft. The temp is noticeably warmer than the rest of the house. I may be expirencing this as a result of south facing windows though and will report what I find in time. If you are using one led bulb or one bar light you probably won’t notice any warmth if this is the case.

LED grow lights generally come in red/blue or full spectrum. I like the full spectrum because you can really appreciate the beautiful colors of your plants under these lights without a strong purple cast due to the lights. Full spectrum is just that, the full spectrum of light so what you are seeing is similar to sunlaight in that its white. Full spectrum also offers wavelengths that red and blue lights don't. Plants utilize red and blue most but those colors are in the full spectrum bulbs as well and I have seen great results with my full spectrums. Plus the sun is full spectrum. How many times can I say full spectrum in one paragraph? In the end its up to you and your budget. After seeing full spectrums effects on my plants and how they look under them, I will never go back to red/blue because I love how bright and vibrant my collection looks.

A small red/blue with some white led from
 home depot that fits traditional light sockets. Though it is labeled full spectrum it does rely heavily on red/blue

A simple pot light from home depot allows
me to clamp the light and position it as needed

I got this set from amazon in 2020 and it really helped my Paphiopedilum orchids wake up after placing the plants 6-8 inches below them for 12hrs a day 7:30-7:30. They also helped my other indoor plants  from completely deteriorating in the winter due to the short days and weak light. Those plants just kind of stayed in limbo but that is to be expected from plants that are used to living in a jungle south of the equator. They woke right back up as Spring came with longer days. The lights can be daisy chained together with included cables and utilize a single wall outlet to power 1 or all 6. These may be sold out but here is a similar set with hoods to block light form shining in your eyes and keep light reflected on plants.

The top light is a low light bar from botanicalleds.com
The other 2 are from amazon.

One of the 6 lights in the amazon set

I attached them to the bottoms of the shelves by drilling small holes in the shelf. I used wire going up though one hole across the top and down the other hole to get the lights as high and level as I could due to the spacing between shelves. 

wire going up through a hole

wire going along the top of shelf

 These 2 lights I got from botanicalleds.com have been a game changer. The "high light" lamp, first 2 photos, I originally placed hanging just over a foot above one of my plant tables. The orchids there have been spiking (sending out a flower) and the tropical plants have been leafing out and not growing thin and spindly as a plant needing light will do. In the phot you can see I lowered it just a bit but the plant growth as also closed the gap. Most of these lights are really meant to be much closer to the plants but for me this set up has worked wonders. Yes, perhaps I would see faster growth and maybe even bigger plants if they were closer but I am pleased my plants are growing fine and not so fast I I can’t keep up with them. This bar type light is very helpful for tables with lots of plants at varying heights. Sure, if they were all similar in height and the light was closer it would no doubt work fantastically but that’s not often the case with collections that are not of one type of plant. Always start higher and slowly lower the light as to not possibly burn the plants.  

I bought my adjustable pulleys from Home Depot. They where cheeper than on the ones from the led light site and just about the exact same thing plus you get 2. 

NOTE: I have had almost no issues of leaves burning from being to close to the LED lights or even touching the underside where the diodes (single led light) are facing. I had concerns about this that I couldn’t find an answer to. So far in my experience generally the lights won’t burn your plants with heat or to strong light rays. It can cause abnormal light green growth or bleaching leaves though depending on the plant. Even then so I really have not noticed this on more than one plant. The Photon rays bar however is strong enough to burn leave that tough the metal and possibly the light side as well. New leaves are more sensitive and tender than mature leaves. it is best practice to just keep a space between the light and the plants.

 

This light is the "Photon Rays" light bar. It’s the sternest light the company offers and this too started fairly high above my south facing window plants, like the other, and has had excellent effects on the growth rate of my plants and clippings. As I said before, South windows can be very strong direct light but I have a tree that chops the light up and on extra hot days leading into summer I have a sheer white curtain I can let down. What I’ve learned from this experiment is that up here in zone 7b I can get away with cheating the direct bright light rules a little with SOME of my plants. Especially in spring and early summer. Even though this is a south window with bright light I wanted to supplement because its not going to get as strong light past noon as the sun passes over into the west. you'll see results and progress shots in the posts about each plant. 

sorry for the sad condition of my Regale in the center.
She had some cold damage from shipping and is still acclimating. 

Where to start-navigation info

There are 3 main things that will make your plant thrive or suffer and it’s not the color of your thumb: Light, water, and growing medium (the ‘soil’ your plants are growing in). If you can meet these properly you should see success. Secondary, but closely related would be: humidity (not as important oh except for in the winter or extremely dry climates. Whole post coming), temperature (within reason) and fertilizer. We will get into specifics in a separate post later as well as accompanying posts on specific plants. 

When deciding on a plant look up the plants needs, that is water, light, and medium. Most will be on a tag if you are buying from a big box store while others you'll need to look up if not listed with the plant online or in store. It's important to know the growing medium type because some will be ready to be repotted sooner than later and when ordering online many plants will ship bare root. Bare root means all the soil/medium has been removed and you will need to pot it. 

After collecting the information on the plant you’ve picked you need to compare it to your current conditions and how you may be able to make it work or not. Many common and collectors plants will acclimate fairly well and give you a rewarding show of leaves. 

Light will often be your biggest hurdle to find and get right. For flowering plants there is a bit less wiggle room when it comes to this if you want more blooms. 

Luckily, with the increased interest in plant collecting many shops will have information on difficulty level listed somewhere so you will have a heads up on what you are getting into or if something maybe out of your current level of experience.

To navigate to pages on general information such as intro, light, watering, general plant info ex orchids, click the link in the pages section to the right desk top, drop down. on mobile. You'll find those posts there while other posts such as specific plants will be post recent first and also located in the posts section to the right. You can always use the search function as well to locate a post. 

                                                                  Anthurium Regale

 

The first little leaf of this blog

Hello everyone, This will be a little intro about this blog.

I was motivated to make this blog after the frustration of having an issue or question and unable to find any answers. Why does this rose cane look like this? Can cicadas effect this plant or that? My orchid bud dropped off my orchid is the whole spike next (sequential bloomers)? I found myself searching and seeking out information from experts on forums and calling the connections I have made on my plant collection journey.  Some helped some I discovered on my own as I went without an answer. I want to pass that on in an easy to find and digest way. I found myself dedicating much of my art Instagram to my plants and how they excite and inspire me. The problem is it detracts from the purpose of that account. choosing to remove some of that plant info from insta I wanted a place to have all of that information and excitement complied and available to people to reference in the future and not just a 24hr story. 

The final reason I felt compelled to make a blog was the excitement of tracking down a plant that’s hard to find and finally finding one. 

I will be talking about plants both indoors and out. You will find information on specific plants as well as general genus and general care and information. Posts will be based on collected information but heavily influenced by my own experiences which I will note in the posts. Have a question? I will have a place for that. Cant find you’re your dream plant?  I am always interested in helping people in the deep dive finding that one leafy trophy. Want information on resources for getting plants, information, products and more in depth care and identification? I will have that as well. This is really a place for me to express my joy in gardening and connect with people who share that joy as well. 

 

Common plants you will find here are:

Roses

Sarracenia 

Aroids

Orchids 

But there will be appreciation posts for plants that are interesting or found on my travels. 

Feel free to leave comment, say hello, or ask a question.

sarracenia Bud Wilkerson x green hornet. Winter 2021 killed it. BUT I did 
learn something about over wintering I look forward to sharing.