On Dec 19, 11:30 pm, Mea505 wrote:
Hello all:

I am a relatively new member of this group, and I looked over the most
recent messages before I decided to write this post. I have a question
dealing, specifically, with the general 'household plant," and the
degree of sunlight that is warranted for such plants.

Question: Is there a means by which one can identify those plants that
require varying degrees of sunlight? Is there a mean of relating this
to the type of leaf, for example? And, if this is true, is it also
true that the typical "household plant" lights that one sees in local
stores are almost as effective as natural sunlight?

Incandescent grow lamps are overpriced and underpowered, but do
output a pleasing to the human eye spectrum, plus lots of heat,
possibly too much for a plant's health. Fluorescents are better,
high intensity discharge halides or high pressure sodium better
still, though the latter two lamps require specialized ballasts
and fixtures.

26 watt (100 watt equivalent) cool white compact fluorescents
are cheap and work great for small plants, with no special hardware
needed; I have a test impatiens that's blooming heavily under a desk
lamp with a 16 watt cool white CFL bulb (60 watt equivalent).

If the answer is
"yes," or "perhaps," then would it be normal to think that one should
use such a light during the normal "rise and fall" of the sun
throughout the day, for example, during those days and weeks of little
to no sunlight for various reasons.

Starting point would be anywhere between 12 and 18 hours on
for every 24 hour "day."