Growing Lights

When you first start your indoor gardening, there are many things to learn. It is very important to understand the appropriate Grow Light System for you to have a healthy garden. Plants require light for photosynthesis. This process changes light energy into glucose and oxygen, which the plant requires to thrive and grow. You must choose the growing lights very carefully, it will be key to the growth of your plants. There many kinds of growth lights, High-Intensity Discharge (HID) growing lights, High Pressure Sodium (HPS) growing lights, Light-Emitting Diode (LED) Growing Lights, Fluorescent grow lights and Metal Halide (MH) growing lights. These are all hydroponic gardening grow lights, and all can be used with plants grown in soil as well.

MH plant lights and HPS growing Lights are part of the HID family. HPS Bulbs and Metal Halide Bulbs emit light that closely resembles the light that the plant utilizes, this helps with plant growth and reproduction. These types of grow light systems have a high initial costs but are considered by many gardeners to be the best plant lights for indoor gardening.

Fluorescent growing Lights emit very little heat, so it is suggested you hang them approximately four to six inches above the top of herbs or plants. Standard fluorescent light bulbs are double the efficiency of standard incandescent lights and also will last 20 to 25 times longer. Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL) growing lights emit a focused, high output spectrum of light. They are great for plant propagation and where growing areas are limited. CFL Grow Lamps can also be used to direct light to specific parts of larger indoor plants. Compact Fluorescent Grow Lamps last approximately 10,000 hours, adding to the cost efficiency

LED growing Lights use less energy and have many other benefits. LED Growing Lights do not require ballast, wich will eventually fail and need to be replaced (unlike all other Growing Systems). These plant lights also emit focused and targeted light whereas other grow lamps emit a wide spectrum of light and most of the wave length is not used by the plant. LED Garden Lights emit only that part of the spectrum the plant actual needs. LED lights operate cooler since virtually no light is wasted. This also means less glare to the human eye but the plants see this light as very bright.