Winter Grow Light Setup for Succulents and Indoor Plants
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Y’all this is such an exciting post!!! I’ve been wanting to publish this post since about mid-October, but I just kept getting this feeling that it wasn’t ready to post yet. I wasn’t sure why, but now I know… This post is the start of my planty YouTube videos that will accompany select blog posts! Sometimes things are just better expressed through a video, and this is one of those times.
I initially wanted to write and publish this post earlier in the fall, but I’m glad I didn’t because my grow light setup has changed drastically since then. Thankfully I waited, and now I can share my grow light setup in its full glory!
My succulents live outside from March/April through September/October. Luckily, Columbia has a very mild winter and longish growing season so I can keep them outside for 7-8 months of the year. Once the temperatures start dropping below 50 degrees at night, I bring my succulents and other houseplants in for the winter.
I use grow lights during the winter because my window sills just aren’t big enough for my succulent collection. I’m pretty sure I would need a house made of windows in order to support the vast number of succulents I have… it’s honestly a problem and kind of embarrassing but hey, it makes me happy so I’m not going to complain too much.
I also use grow lights to keep my succulents from stretching (aka etiolation) and losing their vibrant colors due to lack of light.
Each shelf has two, 4-foot 3200 lumen shop lights. I found them at Walmart for $17 a piece. After doing a hefty amount of research, I came to the conclusion that I didn’t need fancy lights that had the words “grow light” on the packaging. Almost any light would do as long as it was placed properly above the plants and provided the proper daylight spectrum that plants require.
I use an adjustable metal utility shelf on casters to allow me to roll my planty friends throughout the house if needed. The wheels actually came in super handy this past weekend when my parents came into town and I had to roll the plants out of the guest room and into my office.
While I don’t have any FAQs that people have asked me about my setup, I’m going to answer a few that I had when I was doing research about finding grow lights and how to set them up.
How long do I leave the lights on each day?
I let the lights run 14 hours a day. They come on at 6 AM and turn off at 8 PM. This gives the succulents enough light to bring out their beautiful colors and retain their compact shapes!
How far away do you keep the lights above the succulents?
Within 6-8 inches. For my babies up top, the lights are closer because they’re all at a uniform height. For my larger specimen on the middle and bottom shelf, the lights range from 5-8 inches depending on the height of the succulent. I do try to group my plants by height to allow for the most light to be available for the plant.
If I’m a beginner and only have a few plants, do I need a setup like this?
Absolutely not! I have a setup like this because plants are one of my hobbies and I tend to invest time and money into my hobbies to make them better. There are so many grow light options you can have to keep your succulents and plants happy. I am definitely not an expert on grow lights, but I used these from Walmart and these from Amazon last year and had very minimal stretching of my plants.
I’m so excited about this YouTube and blog collaboration journey because 1. the plant community on YouTube is amazing and 2. it’ll keep my blog from being all plant-related posts. I think the two platforms are going to work so well together and really help my creative juices flow in different ways! I’m sure some other bloggers out there can attest that it’s fun to do something new creatively, and it truly does help with inspiration for ongoing creative endeavors like blogging.
Make sure to leave a comment below if you have any questions about my grow light setup! Now you have no excuse to have sad houseplants in the dreary winter…
~abigail gray
