Veratrum? -- just a guess, post pictures of older,please.

I've been using standard, white light fluorescent bulbs in 4' shop lights as plant lighting for years, and even when I did pay the extra cost for grow bulbs, couldn't see any difference in plant growth. But I've also learned to avoid wasting money on the poor quality of bulbs sold at Family Dollar and other "$" chains that import garbage to sell for prices too good to be true. If you are talking about screw base flourescents and want some that will throw a lot of light for little watts and not burn out in a few weeks, try the ones sold for aquariums. I use them in my fish room over tanks that toss up more than a bit of water at them, and they just keep going. I never get less than a year and usually more, of at least 14 hrs. burn, every day, 365. Wal-Mart has the best price for them. At about $6.00 ea., not a Dollar, but in the LONG RUN, still the cheapest.

The green range is mostly rejected--that's why plants are green. (Most "grow lights" have a lot of green; that's why they make plants look so good.) The red, or warm, range is used for setting seed and fruit production. The blue range is used for plant growth. I'm sorry but this is just garbage in so many ways. Plants are green because they reflect some of the green light, but they also use a good proportion of it (roughly 30%-60%) for photosynthesis. Specialist plant lights specifically aim to include only red and blue because these colours are more efficient for photosynthesis, hence fluorescent grow lights look pink or purple, although the lower light levels provided by these types of fluorescent mean that there is not a huge gain to be had from using them. HPS lamps, the favoured lamp of commercial growers, produce most of their light in the yellow wavelengths that are not the most efficient for photosynthesis but the fact that they produce so much light means that they still produce as much or more plant growth than other light sources. There are lights with a lot of green wavelengths promoted as "grow lights", for example some wide spectrum fluorescent lights. They make plants look good because they include a wide range of wavelengths and so render colours accurately, not because they include a lot of green. If just the green was the main reason then plants would look good under green LEDs and trust me they don't! All wavelengths are used for growth. The blue for growth and red for flowering is a trite myth created by comparing just two types of light, HPS and metal halide, which have very particular spectrums. HPS happens to be "redder" and happens to promote flowering and fruiting, while metal halide happens to be "bluer" and happens to produce more compact growth without flowers. Other "red" lights produce strong compact growth without flowering, while other "blue" lights produce etiolated growth with flowers. Leaf size and orientation (eg. following the sun) is controlled mainly by some blue wavelengths (the ones that fluorescents produce, but oddly enough not the ones where metal halides have most of their output) but you don't need much, certainly a cool white fluorescent has more than enough blue. Inter-node length (etiolation) is controlled partly by those same blue wavelengths but also by the ratio of red wavelengths to far red (actually into the near infra-red) wavelengths. Light sources with a strong red component but very little far red produce very compact growth, while bluer light sources that include far red light produce etiolated growth. In practice, this ratio is hard to control with commercial light sources (the wavelengths are not strongly visible to humans) and historically the brute force approach has been to pile on loads of blue light to keep the growth compact. Flowering is controlled by a variety of factors, including temperature, day length, night length, and light wavelength. For a few plants that happen to have received a lot of attention, flowering and fruiting is strongly influenced by those same red:far red wavelengths. Don't put aluminium foil anywhere near your lights, it is useless. Use mylar if you have it, otherwise use white card or anything painted with flat white paint.

According to the University of Missouri ( http://extension.missouri.edu/p/G6515 ) ⦠âÂÂPotted citrus plants prefer bright light for best growth and fruiting. You may keep them at medium light intensities during midwinter. The calamondin orange is the most popular potted citrus, although Meyer lemon and Ponderosa lemon are also satisfactory for home useâÂÂ. They define âÂÂmedium light intensitiesâ as being between 250 and 1000 foot-candles, saying that the best growth occurs above 750 foot-candles. Keeping the lights on for 16 to 18 hours a day is also suggested. I donâÂÂt know the size of your plants but IâÂÂd think that, to properly cover anything other than very small plants, youâÂÂd need more than one light. IâÂÂd also suggest a kelvin rating of 5000K or higher. A CFL bulb (with a clamp-on reflector) rated at 2600 lumens, kept about 10 inches from the plants, would result in the plants getting somewhere between about 1200 and 1600 foot-candles (depending on the size and reflectivity of the reflector) of light intensity. One such bulb can be seen by clicking the link below. Bulbs like this should be available at most local hardware or big box stores. How many youâÂÂd need would depend on the number of (and size of) your plants. Hope this helps, Art Here is a link that might be useful: Good Example This post was edited by art33 on Sat, Jan 18, 14 at 19:50