Been meaning to ask this to the experts here for a while.
How effective are the 'plant lights' you see for sale at Home Depot, Lowes, etc? I've used them, but it's hard to tell how effective they are, and how long I should keep them on. Is there another light source I would have better luck with in the darker winter months? Those plants lights seem more ideal for small plants, and most of what we grow are large tropicals. Plus, the plant lights are expensive for their fairly short life-span.
Also, what kind of heating pads are available to keep my tropical plants soil temperatures up? I've noticed that some of them in the larger pots get somewhat chilly, and I'd like to be able to warm them up a bit to encourage growth year round.
Thanks as always,
John
Plant lights and heating pads
Thanks Dutch. Would I have better luck finding one at a garden center or a pet store I wonder?
Just make sure if you use non-plant heating pads to protect them from water. You sure wouldn't want a fire or personal injury.
Shop lights do an effective job for getting plants through the winter without the expense of "grow lights". You could experiment with an inexpensive shop light and a grow light by having two identical plants under each light for the same amount of time and distance from the light and see if the more expensive grow light is worth it or not.
John, hi neighbor
I use shop lights in my 'indoor grow room', but in the living room I use these lamps that I found at Lowes (where else).
I use these flourescent bulbs and have 2 lamps on the same timer (with the aid of an extension cord). The lights come on at 7 a.m. and go off at 11 p.m. every day. I try to keep them positioned so that they don't make too much glare in the rest of the room.
seems to be keeping cuprea and african shield reasonably happy
love the new leaves on cuprea
and I just noticed 3 buds on it.
The other one is on a schiflera (sp) and other plants in the corner.
Those are really nice plants. And Linda, LOL, you and I have the EXACT same lamp I think. I got mine at Lowes a few months ago. Currently I have regular plant bulbs in it, but I may go to the fluorescent bulbs soon.
That cuprea is very nice! We have been replacing most of our incandescent bulbs with those screw in fluorescent lights because they save energy and last so much longer. They take a few seconds to come up to full brightness and cost more initially but well worth it.
I bought a heat mat from Gardens Alive they have now if you buy $40.00 they give you $20.00 off. I had been wanting one but could not afford the cost. I had gone to gardenalive.com to buy some seed starting soil mix i've used before and like for some special seeds. I was glad to see the heat mat on sale and then the $20.00 off I almost got it FREE :)) My special seeds and seedling need 80 dgerees so this is great.
I have bought many 4 ft light fixtures and put gro-light high spectrum bulbs from Lowes in them worked great. Later we did replace some with cool white works good too. We also enjoy using the daylight bulbs. We also have some clip on light fixtures with 40 watt gro-light the house plants enjoy. It's been dark and raining all week so little extra light helps.
You know, now that you are all talking about the fluorescent bulbs, maybe we don't need plant lights. Several months ago we replaced all of our lights with the longer lasting (low-heat) bulbs. I never even thought about the plants being able to use them for light.
Thanks for the tip on the mat Allison. I'll check that out today.
The carpenter just called me from Lowe's and is head my way to let me see what their grow lights look like in the fixtures with hoods he is working on for me. I sure hope all this is worth it......I love grow lights and think they make a lot of difference.....when I lived in zone 6 through the cold winter months, I could grow plants completely through the cycle of seed into a nice plant indoors.???????????????????
I use the 4' shop lights upstairs on my plant shelves. This was a few years ago when I was obsessed with brugs. This year I don't have as many plants up there, and they're more diverse.
Linda, those are the same fixtures I am getting and 3 of those same shelfs on rollers..........get so excited i don't know what to do!!! He is also building me the fixtures that will be adjustable over each of my two 60" growing mats.
I couldn't make it through the winter without my 'grow room'.
We don't have the shelves with the wheels, but we have similar shelving units. I went and purchased 5 of the big ones at Target a few weeks ago. I think I can circle nearly the entire room with them now. I might give the lights at the top a try, though usually I like to put my tallest plants on the top shelf, so no room for a grow light. Those shelves definitely help keep things organized though.
I got two new philodendrons in the mail today, so I already have started expanding the collection for all the new space we'll have. Having all the green inside makes these winter months no seem so bad.
I tried grow lights before and didn't see that much difference than plain old shop lights (warm or cool).
I am running about 70 shop lights now so you know that 140 tubes times the difference between "grow" lights and shop lights would add a lot more to the bottom line.
WOW cool ! I use to run about 20-40 4 ft. tubes for African violets 12-16 hours a day. You have a great set up there ! The plants don't really care what type you use. But for flowering plants like African violets Gro-lights give you more for your money they say as the plants use 100-- percent of the colors in light when cool or warm only 50. But when they needed to be replaced we went with all cool tubes and I never saw a different in any growth or bloom .
hcmcdole, now THAT's a plant room!
I feel so lame.... I just put shelves up against my southern windows for my plants, adding an Ott-Lite for the plumie, and another for the adenium I keep in my office. That Ott-Lite is on a timer and my office is warm all the time. Good thing one of those windows is 7 feet high and 5 feet wide.