On 06 Nov 2003 16:24:35 GMT, ospam (Rbeezer) wrote:

My gardenia is doing poorly, so I bought some plant light bulbs to help it wrt
light. I bought four 60 watt bulbs to put in the ceiling fixture.

I grew plants for many years with great success and no natural
lighting at all. i used plain cool white fluorescent bulbs and those
shop light fixtures, which hold 4 three foot long tubes. I burned the
tubes until they were black at the ends. I did not use fancy plant
lights.
HOWEVER, in order to trigger flowering, some ends of the spectrum must
be included in the light. if this matters, you can obtain from
companies like GE and other makers of light bulbs, tech information on
this, because commercial growers of things like tomatoes, in places
like Alaska, where they are grown in greenhouses, use all kinds of
specialized lightgs for initiating flowering and even the ripening
process. I am not suggesting you need these, they have noisy hot
ballasts and are not suitable for home use. I mean to suggest only
that real hard data may be obtained for free from any maker of light
bulbs.

There are societies of folks who grow plants under light, i think this
might be the most direct source of useful information to you. Whatever
i did under lights is obsolete, it was over 20 years ago.


http://www.endangeredspecies.com