You sound just like Dennis Harris from alt.support.alzheimers. Do you like
little boys as much as he does?


seek help, that was disgusting.

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.


I have herbs and zinnia growing under such a lamp... My zinnia is about to
bloom ) My DH made a desk for my boys with a fluorescent lamp over it they
were leaving on for 14+ hours a day.... I chose to make use of that and all is
well. I will be adding another lamp near some shelving where I plan to start
seed from for next spring I've had such good success. Until recently I wasn't
able to have houseplants, we had a cat for 18 years who liked her greens... so
for her safety didn't have houseplants. Now that she is gone I have found a few
plants that do well in low light... I couldn't tell you what thye are because
they were bought at the home depot and they don't mark their plants well, ever.
For the first time I am having good luck with house plants even without good
light.
Colleen

Before you go changing light bulbs, you should make sure that your gardenia
is suffering as a result of the light.
Gardenias are notorious for quick decline -- most of the time due to too
much TLC. Your GE grow light may not have anything to do with it.

If you are going to consider a flourescent fixture, make sure you use
full-spectrum tubes. These are more expensive (about 3x the cost) of
standard tubes. And, based on my experience, they don't really promote
growth of most plants. Rather they help to maintain leaf color.

If you are serious about a grow light, contact your local lighting center
about a 1000W MH reflector light.

Good luck.

"Tom Randy" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 06 Nov 2003 11:24:35 -0500, 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.
The bulbs look kinda blue but when they're on, they look like normal
light. My question is, has anyone here swapped out their regular
lightbulbs and put in the plant light bulbs and have it make a
difference
with their houseplants. The bulbs I bought are made by GE they're the
HouseGarden plant light. They cost more than regular lightbulbs (five
dollars each) but much less than the plant grow bulbs I'm finding
online.
I'm wondering now if they do much good.


You really need to go get regular shop light flourescent light fixures.
They are inexpensive and work great. Replace the tubes once a year (they
are cheap too) because the ends of the tubes get dark after about a year
as the bulb nears end of life. The so called incandecent "grow lights" are
not that good at all. Matter of fact they stink.