If you want your houseplants to flourish indoors, you may need supplemental lighting. Charlie Nardozzi, a horticulturist with the National Gardening Association, explains how to choose the proper lighting system for your plants. The easiest way to provide supplemental light is to position an incandescent lightbulb about 1' or so above a plant or two. It won't supply as much light as a "grow light" would, but it works well for plants with low light requirements, such as dracaena, spathiphyllum and aglaonema. Providing an incandescent bulb prevents plants from stretching and becoming leggy in an attempt to get more light. You'll need a different method for more than one or two plants. If you want to start seeds indoors or have a collection of plants that need more light than an incandescent bulb can supply, set up a shop light with 40-watt fluorescent tubes. Fluorescent bulbs provide light from the blue spectrum, which helps keep plants short and bushy. The lights should be set up so that they almost touch the plants: because they're cool, there's no danger of burning the foliage. After four weeks or so, the plants will begin to stretch in search of full-spectrum light and will need to be set outside or provided with a full-spectrum light source such as grow lights. Flowering plants need additional light in the form of high-intensity discharge lamps or halogen lamps, which provide a light source much like the sun. Under such lights you'll be able to grow anthurium, zebra plants, hibiscus, gardenias and others that require bright direct light. High-intensity discharge lamps require a ballast box to regulate the source of electricity going to the lamp. Such lamps cost $150 to $200 and last three or four years. Replacement bulbs are inexpensive. High-pressure sodium lamps provide red-spectrum light that many flowering plants--such as mandevilla and azalea--require to bloom. These high-end systems don't require a ballast. Handle both high-pressure sodium and high-intensity discharge lamps very carefully: they can blow up if dropped. All supplemental lighting systems should be left on for 14 to 16 hours per day, which will add a few dollars extra to your monthly electricity bill.
GUESTS :
Charlie Nardozzi
180 Flynn Ave.
Burlington, VT 05401
Phone: 802-863-1308
Tollfree Phone: 800-538-7476
Fax: 802-863-5962
Email: nga@garden.com
Website: www.garden.com
National Gardening Association
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