Sometimes you can’t find enough natural light for your plants. This explains why I continuously failed to keep succulents alive when I lived in a basement apartment. You’ll likely not be able to rely on pure sunlight to keep your plants thriving.įurther, your home may just not get a lot of natural light even in the warmer months. The main drawback of natural light is just that: it is not always possible to use it.Įspecially in the winter as the days get shorter, there’s less sunlight available Just using what’s available to you rather than having to buy lighting materials is great when it is possible. This allows the plants to absorb the parts of the light that are most helpful to them (red and blue, if you’re curious).Īnother potentially overlooked benefit of natural light is that it’s free! Sunlight benefits plants significantly because it has all the energy plants need to create food for themselves.Īnd, sunlight also provides light across the full light spectrum. Overall, the more natural light you can give your plants, the better. You might also want to check out our full article on how the color of light affects plant growth. Now that we’re all up to speed on the importance of light, we can look more closely at natural light versus artificial light. They feed on the sugars, and those sugars help them to grow, just as our food does for us. Sunlight is a part of the process of photosynthesis, which is essentially how plants get the nutrients they need in order to grow.Ĭhlorophyll, which is in the plants’ leaves, absorbs the light, allowing the plants to break it down and use the different components to create sugars. I won’t throw a long science lesson at you today.īut here’s a little refresher so we can all remember why light is so important for plant growth. Oh, if you’re curious, you can find out whether plants can grow without sunlight.īut what does light actually do for plants? I didn’t realize that all those lessons would come in handy now that I love planting so much!Īs a gardener, you know that plants need water, light, and soil to thrive. If you’re like me, you learned about the science behind plant growth in elementary school.īut you probably didn’t retain most of it. However, artificial lights can work well to supplement sunlight, especially during winter or where sufficient sunlight is unavailable. Generally, sunlight is best for plant growth, since artificial lights cannot replicate the specific colors of light (wavelengths) that are optimal for plants. Luckily, plants can grow in artificial light as well, but is artificial light as effective as sunlight? As a gardener, it can be difficult to find enough sunlight for your plants to grow successfully, especially during the winter, or if you do not have a lot of natural lighting in your home.
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