Lighting Needs

• Three aspects of light are essential to plant growth. The first aspect is the quality of the light. This refers to what type of light waves are emitted by the light. Sunlight has many colors of light waves, including orange, indigo, violet, yellow, red, blue and green. Plants generally only need blue light and red light in order to grow. The light must also have enough intensity to support the growth of the plant, and the light must be available to the plant for enough time each day to allow it to photosynthesize its food.
  
  

Incandescent Light

• The traditional household light bulb is an incandescent light. These lights are not very good at using electricity efficiently. The light they provide is almost exclusively from the red end of the spectrum. Incandescent bulbs are also very hot. Because of the heat they produce, they must be located a minimum of two feet from the plant to avoid damaging the leaves. This reduces the intensity that incandescent bulbs are able to provide and that, combined with the fact that red light alone is not suitable for growing plants, makes this type of bulb ineffective as a grow light.
  
  

Fluorescent Light

• Fluorescent light has long been common in office buildings, stores and other public places. It is common now in homes as well, as compact fluorescent lights, or CFLs, have replaced incandescent light bulbs in homes across the United States. Fluorescent light bulbs and tubes are much cooler in operation than incandescent bulbs, which allows you to place them much closer to plants to provide adequate intensity. Since these bulbs give off mostly blue light, the type of light needed by foliage plants, you can place fluorescent lights about four inches away from the leaves to grow many types of plants.
  
  

Combinations

• Special grow lights are available that provide a broad range of light wave colors at a high intensity. These bulbs grow almost any kind of plant and are ideal choices when the object is to grow seedlings for the garden, a number of lush houseplants and any kind of flowering plants. Fluorescent and incandescent bulbs can also be combined to provide a wider range of light waves, but the limitations on the incandescent light means that this arrangement is usually suitable just for one or two plants due to the lack of light intensity.