Hey all. I recently planted some Oleander around a street light (see thread in this forum). Even though the site gets 6-7 hours of full sunlight before it gets blocked by a tree canopy, I was wondering if the street light itself provided any benefit to the plants. The light comes on at sunset and turns off at sunrise. This gives an all-night-long dosage of halogen (I believe?) light. I know plants need all the colors of the light spectrum (remember ROY G BIV?), and halogen should meet such requirements. Does anyone know if the plants will benefit from a halogen street light?
Street Light - Provide Light for Photosynthesis?
Doh, I may have stumbled across the answer to my question. Read here: http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/problems/how-light-affects-the-growth-of-a-plant-problems-with-too-little-light.htm
It seems halogen provides "red" light, whereas fluorescent, daylight, and "grow lights" provide "blue" light which plants need to grow. I guess the halogen street light is good for illuminating the plants at night to make them look "pretty", but nothing more lol...
Grantman, I'm glad you posted this because I have wondered the same thing. We have a streetlight that is sometimes on and sometimes not. Good to know the answer.
With lights like that, even if it was a fluorescent light that did provide a wavelength that was helpful to plants you generally need to have the plants very close to the light in order for it to "count" towards your sunlight total (for example when you're starting seedlings, they will get leggy if the light is more than a few inches above the tops of the leaves). But night-time lighting can sometimes have a negative impact on some plants--here's an interesting article to read http://calgary.rasc.ca/lp/plants.html
Wow, interesting information, ecrane. Thanks for the link!
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