Hi Anthony,

Before purchasing plants I would recommend buying a copy of Peter D'Amato's, "Savage Garden". He has a down-home, folksy, approach to educating us as to appropriate water, soil, lighting, etc...

The plants are all different as to their requirements, so there's no general answer to cover everything. It depends upon what you want to focus on: outdoor plants:

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Indoor ones:

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Tropical types:

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Jim

Most new comers just can't wait to make their first post. Even though most of their questions have already been answered in earlier posts they ignore them and jump right in. Yes "The Savage Garden" is an excellent place to start but all your answers are probably already posted here and are free to read. It really won't take that long for you to read the first 3 pages of threads on this forum. You may want to skip some of the short threads(unless they apply to one of your questions) and pick the threads with more replies as they are chalked full of useful info. I'm not trying to be mean or dodge your questions in fact I and others have already answered them. Enjoy!

I'm not sure 17 watts will be strong enough. I know T-8s are more efficient than the older tubes. If 17 watts T-8 is the equivalent of a 20-watt T-12, that might be enough for a small collection of plants that don't demand much light. I'm thinking pings and maybe some drosera. And nepenthes of course, but you'd run out of space quickly if my estimates are correct. By the way, all this is based on a 20-watt grow light that I owned decades ago, so I may be way off.

And of course, I you're growing the plants next to a bright window, obviously the bulb output becomes less important.