A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 help with grow lights

Hello,
I am writing to request help for grow lights. I have some plants that I started this year from seeds. I was afraid the neighborhood bully (rabbit) would eat them if I planted them in the yard this year. I am going to attempt to grow them inside with "grow lights". Will florescent lights work or do I need to purchase the expensive metal halide lights? I have one grow light that I am using for my new seeds. I am contemplating purchasing another light but I want to make sure I have what I need before the first frost hits. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Regular florescent lights will work fine. Alot of us here just use the cheap shop lights for our growing needs. We have talked about this alot on here, so you might do a search of the forum and see if you can find some usful info about it. I do know you can get better results if you use one cool and one warm tube in each fixture. What kind of plants are you growing...some may require being closer to the lights then others.

Mocha, I use the full spectrum grow light tubes in my florescent fixtures, because regular florescent lights just didn't cut it. (plants got spindly pretty fast.) The full spectrum lights didn't really cost that much more than the regular tubes, & I thought my plants were a lot happier with it.

What kinds of plants are you planning to grow indoors?

Thanks! I am growing wand flowers, caladiums, an african tree, blue delphiums and cannas. I have other seeds that I haven't started yet. I want to wait to see how these do first. Wish me luck!

Oh, earlier in the year I started foxglove (my favorite this far), chinese lanterns, clematis and blanket flowers. Those are the plants I was worried about being eaten by the neighborhood bullies. LoL

I would like to try to grow Hibiscus, rose of Sharon and hostas inside as well.