Additional Light Setup?

18 years ago

I have a question for you all, and maybe you can tell me what to do if I'm wrong, or off-base. Let me describe my situation first.

I have a good number of plants; nothing fancy, just the more common aroids and ficuses, etc. About 30 plants in all. I know how to care for them, light req's, all that type of stuff. Here's my dillema: Right now I live in an apartment that has the advantage of two large windows that face west, and an empty lot is next to me, so I get pretty much unobstructed full sun all afternoon and on into the evening. So I've got my plants spread out across my living room, which is about 15 feet from window to wall. I am moving into an apartment that only has north-facing windows, and I think there's going to be trees obstucting the light that could come in. So I'm basically looking at going from a full-sun to a shade type of natural light setup.

My concern is that my plants won't get enough light (lol, "concern") and I'm trying to figure out what I can do to help them out. Most of my plants I've had for years; so I really don't care what I have to spend. I've used shop light before (the regular 4ft T8 kind) and they don't give me the light I need.

What do you all think I can do to provide more light? I don't really like the idea of plant stands because most of my plants are too big to fit in or on them. I'd keep my plants all in one area if I could buy a light strong enough for them (High Intensity and/or Metal Halide lamps are'nt out of the question for $ if they'll let me do what I want). Would I be able to situate a light near the windows or would I have to do something different?

Ultimately my goal is (and here's where you all can shoot me down) to be able to buy a light and hang it such that my ficus (regular benjamina) can have enough light to grow well, as that's the plant that I have that needs the most light. And if I'd be able to place my other plants out along the windows too (like a 10 foot area at the most), that'd be a plus, but I'll grow them like I'd have to.

Thanks in advance and sorry for so many questions at one time.

-sbc

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Comments (5)

maineman
18 years ago
SBC,

I'm sure you can purchase high intensity or metal halide lamps that will meet the needs of your plants and hopefully you can mount them in fixtures that will be esthetically pleasing in your new apartment.

I don't have any personal experience that will help you because my focus is on growing seedlings for an early start in our short-season Maine garden. So I use overdriven 4-foot shoplights, mounted just inches away from the seedlings. My maximum light intensity on the plants is about 500 foot-candles.

However, it may help others in their recommendations to list the foot-candle requirements of your plants.

MM
shrubs_n_bulbs
18 years ago
The ficus will be fine near a north-facing window. The others I don't know. Do you really think the others need less light, or just that they don't tolerate bright light as well?

MM, only 500fc? Sounds way low. I would have guessed around 2,000fc from overdriven tubes.
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sbc1193
Original Author
18 years ago
The ficus will be fine near a north window? I don't know about that one, as I've known it to not respond (abcission) to lesser light levels.

The other plants don't need as much light, we're talking about the more common ariods like philos, agnaolemna, homoalemna (sp,) dieffs, monsteras, etc. And maybe an arrowhead and a coupla dracaenas.

So what do you think I'd be able to do in terms of getting the right light setup?
shrubs_n_bulbs
18 years ago
Ficus benjamina, despite being basically a high light tropical tree, is one of the best-adapted plants to low light levels. That's why it is such a good houseplant and office tree. Also, it thrives on little water.

Ficus does drop its leaves whenever conditions change. Moving from high light to very low light could defoliate the entire tree. It would likely drop its leaves anyway from moving home. It will then regrow leaves adapted to the conditions and a couple of months later you won't be able to tell the difference. It will grow just fine near a north window.

I don't know all your other plants, but the dracaenas and monsteras are fine in low light. Maybe not north facing, although I've grown monstera there, ideally, somewhere a bit brighter but not in full sun. I've seen Dracaenas grown over ten feet away from a north window, they seem happy enough. I'm not sure you need artificial light for any of these.
maineman
18 years ago
Shrubs n Bulbs,

I measured the 500fc with my old Norwood Director light-powered selenium-detector analog light meter, with the white plastic indirect sphere installed over the detector to measure incident illumination on the upper plant leaves and not the direct illumination on the bulb surfaces.

The overdriven cool white Philips bulbs do look blindingly bright white and, if you aimed a direct reading light meter at them, you might get a reading much higher than my incident readings. But the leaves themselves just look well lit, with the lower leaves getting considerably less than 500fc.

I am reasonably happy with the results I get with my overdriven units. Last year I set out peppers that already had pickable peppers on them. My wife commented that my seedling operation was transitioning into hydroponic gardening.

I do use some hydroponic soluble nutrients, such as calcium nitrate. After a month or so of growth, my seedlings apparently do deplete the available calcium in my Premier Pro-Mix and start to show calcium deficiency symptoms. So now I preemptively feed a little dilute calcium nitrate after a few weeks of growth. That prevents the appearance of those calcium deficiency symptoms and seems to keep the plants quite healthy.

MM