All living things need food and water. For plants light is food. They use it in a vital process known as photosynthesis, wherein the energy of light is captured by chloroplasts, sparking multiple metabolic reactions — one of these being creating sugars (food) for plants. Sugars fuel plant growth, so the more light a plant is exposed to, the more energy it will create and the faster it will grow.

If you look out from the plants view and see the sun in line with the plants “vision” then this would be considered direct sunlight, which you should avoid. However, indirect light is ambient light emitting from the plants view of the sky but cannot actually see the sun. Overcast and cloudy days can turn direct sunlight areas into more indirect, and indirect areas much shadier.

When there are no windows present within your space or the existing artificial light isn’t strong enough to promote plant growth then any plant that you place within those conditions will gradually decline overtime, as no plant can survive without light! If this is the case, investing in grow lights, or incorporating preserved plants that require no maintenance, may be right for you. Any plant can thrive well under artificial lighting as long as it emits the right intensity of light. A digital light meter can help measure the intensity of your lights. Usually, if a bulb has lumens greater than 500 it will be bright enough placed 6-12 inches above a plant.

Grow lights are specifically designed to create light in colors that plants can absorb (red, yellow, blue, purple, UV, essentially everything but green). Standard lights and lightbulbs are made to create light that is useful for the human eye, specifically. To put it simply, they’re made to help us see, not to help plants grow. Some plants will thrive under fluorescent lighting when supplementing a low-light setting, but not all. The artificial light being offered needs to be a high enough intensity to meet your plant’s needs. Grow lights are designed to offer what plants are missing in their environments because outdoor light is constantly bouncing back onto them in ways that indoor light simply doesn’t. Typically grow lights don’t create much heat.

While plants can make use of fluorescents and LEDs, grow lights come in an intensity strong enough to encourage plant health and growth over time. The light is typically warm and full-spectrum, with over 20 watts and over 100 volts to provide what plants need. They don’t come in dimmable options, as the purpose is to mimic sunlight.