Thinking of growing year-round under lights....

[Leafmite]

Three autumns ago, I began growing orchids and a few other plants under lights during the cold months. After a little adjustment, I seem to be doing well. I am thinking of growing plants under the lights for the entire year, instead of moving the plants outside every spring and inside every autumn. This thought of changing things was prompted by the introduction of a huge, fast, funnel-web spider into the house. An unhappy week for my spouse followed until I finally caught her and put her outside. This experience got me thinking that it would be rather nice not to get eaten alive by mosquitoes while enjoying my plants. I also would not need to worry about the plants being stolen (heroine has come to our small town. )

How many of you grow your plants indoors all year under lights? Do you have any tips? Suggestions? Do any of you use T5HO fluorescent lights? Do you grow Cattleyas under the lights? I do plan to use a fan on the plants to help with the heat but, as we do not have AC, it does get warm.
Thanks!

---------- Post added at 01:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:31 PM ----------

If anyone has any pros and cons to share, I would love to hear those, too!

[Orchids4ever]

Hello Leafmite
I grow mine all year under Lights ( I hate Bugs -I tried in my first Year growing and put them outside-after bringing them in-next morning i had slugs running around on my Kitchen Table-gross -so they have not been outside since .
Anyway-i grow all my Cattleyas under T5"s- i have 2 x 4' at 2700K and 2 x 5400K on each Shelf and run those little computer Fans --one on each shelf .
I have no problems blooming them-
well- except my walkeriana -that one just doesn't want to bloom for me

[Tindomul]

I don't have an outdoors to speak of. Only window sills. So my collection consists of things I can grow indoors. That being said, I can grow and flower Cattleyas well enough. I guess it all depends on what you are growing and how much light you are willing to put on them.
Are there other reasons for putting them outside, like humidity or temperature conditions being better outdoors? Then you would have to try to make them happy that way too.

[Leafmite]

Thanks. I do have a bunch of walkeriana and walkeriana hybrids. It will be interesting....
I do not mind slugs outside but inside....ugh. I do understand. This year, I had a pill bug infestation. I do not mind one or two but there were so many that they were eating the roots and even the flower buds! I noticed that the group of orchids that remained inside this past summer did not get scale, mealy bugs or anything else. That was rather nice.

There is no benefit where humidity is concerned as the windows are open during the summer. The free light and breeze is nice but if the T5HO and my fan can substitute, I think I will go for growing indoors.

One of the other issues we have been having lately is the crazy weather. Some summers, we have had night temperatures in the low forties and one summer, we kept having temperatures just above freezing. That just gets annoying.

Thank you!

[FairyInTheFlowers]

One of the things I've come to realise is that you will never be able to casually grow under lights in your house and have high humidity or cool temperatures. Growing them in a small enclosed space, like a closet as I've done, does help the humidity a small bit, but even high efficiency bulbs will raise the temperatures during the day. Plus, if you're using regular housing areas, high humidity might not be wanted in the long run, so you're better off not letting humidity run too high, which is to the detriment of the orchids. I've always used and swear by Sunblaster T5HO's. You can solely use the 6400K spectrum bulbs, and I used to grow solely under those and bloom and grow things fine. However, I now use one each of 2700K 6400K and 10 000K spectrum bulbs. It's been said that while the 6400K is a broad spectrum that can grow and bloom anything, the 2700K and 10 000K put out light in spectrums that help encourage growth and blooming. Now, I can't necessarily say whether or not this is true, but I can say that using one of each bulb produces a light that is much more pleasing to the human eye, whereas the broad spectrum 6400K bulbs feel a bit too clinical room white to me. Also, if you can find a retailer that sells Sunblasters, they offer either 2', 3', or 4' ballasts that come equipped with a 6400K bulb. If the store is decent enough, it will sell replacement bulbs of each three spectrums in each of the three lengths.

(Sorry if this is incoherent, my boyfriend has been showing me his coin collection. If you want any clarification, just ask)

[fishmom]

Yes, Cody is right, the minute the lights come on the humidity goes down. I am stuffing my growtent but I can't duplicate the 70% humidity I had before I put a light above it. That is with water trays below and a small fan running 24/7.

[Leafmite]

Thanks, Cody! You do make sense. Thanks Fishmom. Humidity was a problem until this year. I am using trays and I have the orchids that were unhappy under the lights in a window and the ones that need very high humidity small terraiums with cloth over (as they like shade, too). The others (Cattleyas, Angraecum sesquipedale, Cyncnodes, Phal-type Dendrobium, etc. are not at all picky, judging by past experience.

The other plants I am currently growing under lights are 3 dwarf Ficus carica (which were all proclaimed great for bonsai and will be kept small), a mini pom tree, coffee, a couple of alpine strawberries (I have more outside), a guava, Aglaia odorata, a few small citrus, a piper nigrum, a Cestrum nocturnum and a Camellia sinensis. These have been growing under lights for almost two months and are doing very well. I wonder if anyone else has tried growing any of these under lights for an entire year successfully?

I will probably get more lights for he Cinnamon, bay laurel, Manikara zapota and plumeria. The Jasmine and Theobroma cacao will remain in the window as they do fine in a shaded location (and the Theobroma would probably fry under lights). It should be an interesting future for all these plants. They have always gone outside every summer.

I currently have a Sunblaster and three Envirogro. Looks like I will be getting more shelves, more lights.

[FairyInTheFlowers]

Originally Posted by Leafmite

The other plants I am currently growing under lights are 3 dwarf Ficus carica (which were all proclaimed great for bonsai and will be kept small), a mini pom tree, coffee, a couple of alpine strawberries (I have more outside), a guava, Aglaia odorata, a few small citrus, a piper nigrum, a Cestrum nocturnum and a Camellia sinensis. These have been growing under lights for almost two months and are doing very well. I wonder if anyone else has tried growing any of these under lights for an entire year successfully?

The only problem I can see you having with these plants under lights is that I'm assuming most of these are bushy, broad-leaf plants. What is convenient about orchids is that most of them have small leaf surface areas without much overlapping and shading of themselves. I could see bushy plants being a bit fussy under lights where the source of the light is only coming from one direction, rather than the sun travelling through the sky. This would place many of the leaves in a constant shadow, possibly leading to etiolation.

[Orchid Whisperer]

As you can see, 100% under lights does work for many people. If it works for you, why not do it?

Personally, I like my outdoor season with my plants. If I had no choice but to grow indoors 100% of the time, I would likely give away or sell off most of my orchids, maybe keeping only 1 or 2 plants. Different choices for different folks.

[katrina]

I'm with OW in that I like having my orchids outside during the warmer months...even though it comes w/it's share of things that I'd rather not deal with.

For me, having them outside it a break from the time consuming act of watering vs when they are inside. When outside I can just grab the hose and go. And, fertilizing is easier and quicker because I use a dial-set hose end sprayer but when inside I have to use a battery operate sprayer...it's just a lot more time consuming. So, yea, I need the 3-4 month break every year.

Also, the lights heat the house up so much that the a/c would be running non-stop and if I didn't have a/c then the house would be unbearably hot for the humans. And, I only run the lights for 10 hours during the bulk of the winter...starting w/a 12hr run time and bumping up to a 12hr run time in the spring. If I had to keep the orchids inside all summer then I'd have to run them at 14hrs combine that w/the constantly running a/c...well, my electric bill would be astronomical. And the extreme heat of lights combined w/no a/c...could cause problems of it's own. When my orchids first came inside this fall it was cooling down but we hit a patch of a couple of weeks where the outside temps went back up into the 80's and some days near 90...and w/the lights only set to 12 hours and the a/c not on...I actually got some damage on a few leaves of a couple of catts. Extreme heat build up caused cell collapse...almost a total scorch in a few of the leaves. W/no a/c...that might be something you'd want to consider.

It can work for some people but, for me, I wouldn't consider it. I also am of the believe that all plants benefit greatly from the time out in the elements. Rain, fluctuations of temps, humidity (when available), and wind...all good things. But, yes, there are also those less desirable aspects to it...bugs, pesky squirrels, chipmunks, birds, raccoons that like to knock pots around, the list can go on and on. For me the biggest PITA w/growing outdoors is when we are under severe weather alerts that involve high winds and I'm having to run around like a crazy person to get the orchids situated so they don't end up blowing around the neighborhood. I still remember the year Hurricane Ida whipped up through here and sent orchids flying through the air...I never did find about 4 of the smaller ones. Since that storm, I have a routine that requires a good 1-2 hrs to get everything secured and that time + a bit more to get them back into place once the storms have moved along - not convenient. Again though...the break I get through those months is more important to me than the inconveniences and risk associated w/all the plants being outside.

Now that I'm thinking about it...my biggest problem in the summer is the bouts of never ending rain we get...I have to pot up my orchids in set ups that can hopefully deal with that faction but because of that they dry out super fast under the lights...so that's kind of a PITA too. I've often wished I had the Bewitched nose twitch so I could switch things out in the spring and then again when they come back inside in the fall.

One more thing...you'll have to replace your bulbs more frequently if growing inside year round especially if you're running them the higher time frames in the summer.

There are also some orchids that might not bloom well under lights only...Ctsm, many rupics, maybe some of those walkeriana (maybe) but I think most would bloom fine if the time is high enough and the bulbs are good.

I'm not trying to discourage the idea...just throwing out some things you might want to consider. You can always give it a try and see how it goes. It would be a simple enough fix if you find you aren't getting the results you want. Give it a season and if it doesn't work out then you can always go back to putting them outside the next year.