Hey all!
I tried asking this on a more generic plants & gardening forum since only some of my plants are orchids, but it seems most of the discussion there is about starting seedlings for gardens.
So, I apologize if it's a little too non-orchid-y, but I think you all would have a higher chance of knowing the info I want.
Being the owner of giant, only north-facing windows, I am tired of the guesswork of wondering if said giant windows provide enough light and am interested in moving my misfit plant collection to something less dependent on good weather. I'm likely going to be buying a light meter in the next week, give or take, so I can see just how much light I'm getting from said window. But even if it's good for my lower-light plants, I still only have a couple of square feet of growing space there on top of a bookshelf that won't fit everything on it -- so it's basically a good display area when stuff blooms and that's about it.
I already have one of those five shelf, 4 ft wide wire racks in another room, not near a window, that I'd like to use. I have one shelf pretty much already cleared that I want to put all the plants on. Of course it's roughly 4 ft wide and a little under 1.5 ft deep, and I can easily clear 27" for lighting and the plants themselves, but if I could shrink that to 24" even, that'd be better for the lower storage shelves.
I have a few more plants I still want to purchase, but once I have them all I will have two equal groups: those that should be around 1000-1500 fc (3 phals*, one guzmania bromeliad, one cane begonia), and a group that are 600-1000 fc (4 various-sized African Violets, one rex begonia). I'm not planning on getting any more plants beyond that, mostly because I will be out of room. Maybe if/when I move to somewhere with natural light, haha...
My main question is are there any suggested fixtures for lighting this array of plants? Do note I am of course trying to go towards the cheaper end of things, so bargain-bin solutions are great!
I was initially thinking two 2ft florescent light fixtures each with different bulbs, but being new to the whole concept of artificial light for plants, I have no idea how -many- bulbs or anything like that. Is there any rule of thumb for figuring out the light at distance X from bulb to leaves if it has Y lumens on the fixture's/bulb's box or similar things that would prevent playing musical fixtures until I get one that works? Could it be done with one 4ft and just put the lower light stuff around the sides, or is there not that much of a difference between the center parts and the edges?
After poking around the web some, I also now am also considering 2ft florescent for the lower light plants and CFLs for the higher light plants -- but I have absolutely no idea how fixtures for those work! Are they in domes like for reptile lights to focus the light or are they in the open and just kind of there without a covering or does it even matter? Is there any sort of math for figuring out how many CFLs are needed to light a space well enough for phals at a certain distance, or is it mostly trial and error?
Are there any major pros/cons between these two setups that I should keep in mind before running out to the store/Amazon to purchase things? Any other advanced newbie tips for figuring out specific fixtures & bulbs? Basically any help is appreciated!
Thanks!
*Two of the phals are in orchid-ICU. If they don't pull through, they'll likely be replaced with a paph and an odontoglossum if I can find ones I like -- and if not, other phals. Unless I'm terrible at remembering things, they should be similar lighting? But basically I'll have the same number of plants in the end.
Choosing lighting setup for phals + other plants
Linear Mode
