Light for succulent growth
It’s time to set up your grow lights after choosing the best ones for your succulents. Find a location in your home where you can install the lighting and the plants.  
It’s crucial to leave enough of space between your succulents and the light. If you’re too close, the heat from the bulbs could damage your succulent. If it is too distant, there won’t be enough light for the succulent to develop healthily. In general, it should be at least 6 inches long and no longer than 40 inches. Of course, additional factors affect the precise distance.
A 10-inch spacing is adequate if you use LED or fluorescent lamps without any tricks. However, you can narrow the gap to 6 inches when using larger succulents.
The plant’s tolerance for heat and light also influences the distance. Maintaining the ideal light and temperature for your plants while not wasting any electricity is a tricky balance.
Water inside the cells of the leaves, trunks, and stems may heat up if they are 5 inches or closer from the light. Your plant will eventually become scorched or suffer from dehydration. The following are some fundamental guidelines for using grow lights:
- It is advised to keep fluorescent tube lights and bulbs 6 to 12 inches away from your succulents. The suggested distance for LED lighting is between 18 and 24 inches.
- The ideal color temperature for promoting succulent growth is 6500k. A 3000k light is preferable if you want your plant to bloom. Just be cautious if your plant is a monocarpic succulent because it can bloom if you give it too much light.
- The lights won’t need to be on all the time. Giving your plants a break from the light so they can breathe is good. Generally speaking, expose your plants to light for 12 to 14 hours each day.  
Don’t let the plants stand with the light source at just one angle. Instead, turn the plants over once a week so that all of their sides receive the same amount of light.
Keep a watch on your succulents when you move them indoors to observe how they respond and make any necessary adjustments. Your indoor succulent plants will be strong and content with the optimum grow light and routine hydration.
With our selection of the best indoor succulents, enjoy your gardening. They are fantastic for any house, workplace, or garden to create the ultimate green area because they are simple to cultivate, very versatile, largely pest-free, and low care.
How much time should be spent with succulents in a grow light?
The temperature drops and the leaves begin to change as winter draws near. You must now bring your succulents inside to protect them from the harm that freezing can do.
Your house can provide your succulents the perfect temperature, but what about the light? Have you given this aspect any thought? If grow lights are to be used, how long should they be on for succulents?
If you want your succulents to flourish, you need to find the answers to these crucial questions. These and other inquiries will be addressed in this essay. There is a lot to learn, so let’s get going.
Whens The Appropriate Time to Bring in Succulents?
Some succulents, such hardy sedums and sempervivum, can survive year-round outside (even through the freezing winter days). However, when exposed to severely cold temperatures, the majority of other succulents suffer damage. Therefore, it is crucial that you bring your succulent indoors once winter arrives.
Examine the plant first, then take off any dead leaves and foliage as well as any insects you uncover. Clean the pans properly as well. When the outside temperature has dipped to about 40’S, or about 5oC, it is preferable to bring in your succulents. Your home’s temperature will be better suited for your delicate succulents, but you may need to change your watering routine because the plants will use less water indoors.
However, lighting is the most difficulty. Yes, some succulents may be content and able to thrive in your indoor illumination, but many will require more than that to survive. As you are already aware, photosynthesis, which produces the energy needed for growth and reproduction, depends on light. But without enough light, your plants will swell, become etiolated, and in extreme situations, they could even perish. So, if you see the succulents extending, that can mean they aren’t getting enough light.
Do Succulents Require Grow Lights To Survive?
It is not required. Your succulents are more likely to survive the winter months if there is a window where they may receive enough light throughout the day. But because the days are shorter in the winter, there won’t be as much light as there would have been in the summer.
It just takes a short while for succulents to start stretching out and losing their compact shape and vibrant colors if they don’t receive enough light. They might still be alive and healthy, but not as well as they would be in sufficient light. Winter’s shorter days frequently cause succulents to stretch, so you must find a means to adequately light your succulent so that the shorter days don’t impair the amount of light provided.
Grow lights hold the key to the solution to this. Your plant will remain vibrant and compact as a result. Additionally, it helps bring extra bright light throughout the day. Succulents housed indoors for multiple winters without the help of a grow lamp have occasionally survived without harm. However, when spring approaches, many of these succulents get more elongated. Many people frequently prune them back before planting the succulents in the ground. However, you might choose to buy a grow light to stop the stretching.
How Long Should Succulents Be Under Grow Lights?
There is a growing season and a dormant season for succulents. Since all succulents go dormant in the winter, they will need less light when kept outside, but they can tolerate as much light as possible indoors.
When grown inside, succulent plants won’t experience real dormancy until a shift in light and temperature is made to force it. Succulents need at least six hours of sunlight each day to survive, but they also need darkness every day to sustain a healthy development cycle.
You can put succulents under grow lights for roughly twelve to fourteen hours, which is the answer to the question of how long they should be. This indicates that the grow lights simulate natural sunshine in addition to a few more hours. A timer can be used to keep track of how much time has passed. It’s vital to buy a grow light with minimal heat output because some excessively hot lights will burn your plant.
What Grow Lights Should I Purchase?
In this session, numerous other queries are posed. There are several pertinent considerations, such as what type of grow light should be used, how much grow light is required, what hue of light should be acquired, and how far the light should be from the succulents. Here are some things to think about in relation to this:
What kind of light should I buy? A fluorescent light (CFLs) or a bulb (T5/T8 bulbs) is the best type of lighting to employ.
Which grow light color should be purchased? The greatest option is a daylight spectrum (especially one with a color temperature of 6500K)
How far apart should the succulent and the grow light be kept? A: The fluorescent light and the succulent should be separated by roughly 6 to 12 inches (but only if you are using a fluorescent bulb)
How many lights ought to be purchased? A: The quantity of plants will determine this. The more plants, the more grow lights are required.
The aforementioned advice was compiled based on effectiveness and cost. Nevertheless, there are other, more expensive choices to take into account, some of which are even more successful than those mentioned. Given their availability and efficiency, fluorescent grow lights are a good choice to take into account.
Regarding the color of light to be utilized and the recommended number of lights, the answers to the questions are the most ambiguous. Red and blue lights are the two most often used colors of light. The most natural light is provided by blue lights, which have a daylight temperature of 6500K. Also keep in mind that a 3000K bulb is the ideal choice for growing succulents properly under grow lights.
It’s typically advised to receive as much light as you can when it comes to the amount of light required. Additionally, shining this light directly on your succulent is a smart idea; but, in limited places, this might not be practical. However, the general concept is that you should use a light that covers a space of 1 foot by 4 feet if you have plants in that area. Grow lights can be purchased locally or online.
Wrap Up
In a well-lit interior environment, your plants can survive without a grow light, but one is still necessary because it ensures that they receive enough light for healthy growth and development. How long should succulents be kept under grow lights is just one of the numerous queries that come up with them.
We think the query has been satisfactorily addressed in this post. We were also able to provide you with a ton additional advice that will ensure your succulents enjoy the best indoor growing possible. Now is the proper time for your plants to bloom, and you may thank us for that.
Let’s Tend The Garden founder Helen Reed is the author of the piece. Here is a location where gardeners and those who love the backyard may go to find the best online material (we think so, anyway).
Can you use a grow light on succulents?
I don’t have much experience growing succulents in cold temperatures and dark winters because I live in sunny Southern California. I’m fortunate enough to be able to leave my plants outside all year long without significant frost or low light harm. I am aware that many of you reside all over the world and are unsure of what to do with your plants now that you have brought them indoors for the winter. Perhaps despite the fact that you have your plants on window sills, they are still growing languidly, or perhaps the winters in your area are completely dark. Look nowhere else! I’m very happy to have indoor plant growing specialist Ben Thorton here with us today to share his knowledge about using grow lights to support the growth of your lovely garden regardless of the lighting situation!
Succulents have recently risen to the top of the list of preferred indoor plants because of how attractive they are, how they enhance the atmosphere of your home, and how little maintenance and water they need compared to other indoor plants. Many people are reluctant to grow succulents in regions with short summers because they are warm-weather and sun-loving plants. You might be shocked to learn that even if you live in a climate with distinct seasons and chilly, gloomy winter months, you can still grow succulents all year round. Once the weather becomes cooler, just move the succulents inside and provide the artificial lighting they require. Here is a simple tutorial on growing succulents indoors and under artificial lights if you are unsure about using grow lights or worried that you might harm your plants by using them.
Artificial lighting can be categorized as either lighting used in addition to natural lighting or lighting utilized to perfectly mimic sunlight in situations where none actually exists. Since vitamin D, one of the most important vitamins in the human body, is obtained from sunlight, artificial light cannot replace it for humans. In contrast to other living things, plants just require the light itself from the sun. Photosynthesis is a process that takes place when plants are exposed to light and provides them with the energy they require to grow. Succulents can be grown indoors under artificial light just as well as outdoors in natural sunshine, provided that the right amount of light is provided. To successfully grow your succulents in your house, you will need to select the best lights and understand a few basic lighting techniques.
There are a few considerations to keep in mind when selecting artificial lighting for an indoor garden. And they are as follows:
How strong and bright is the light produced by the grow lights?
The brightness of the light produced by grow lights is the most important factor to consider because it will affect how much light the plants receive and how well they can grow. You need lights for succulents that produce at least 2,000 lumens per square foot of illumination. 10,000 lumens per square foot are produced by noontime direct sunlight, but if you run 2,000 or more lumen lamps for 14 or more hours a day, the plants will receive almost the same amount of light as they would in the height of summer.
What is the light’s wattage?
Another item to consider is the wattage of the grow lights you buy, as this will have an impact on your electricity bill. You pay more for electricity the more watts a light uses, therefore you don’t want to choose a light that is brilliant but uses a lot of watts because that will be very expensive. To get the best of both worlds—bright light for your plants and minimal electricity consumption for you—look for lights that are marked as energy efficient. These lights will likely have a high lumen count and low wattage, giving you the best of both worlds.
What color temperature range does the light produced by grow lights fall into?
Because succulents love the sun and prefer bright light to shadow, they also need a particular light with regard to the color temperature of the light. The visible color that the grow lights emit is essentially their color temperature. Kelvins are used to measure this. To provide the light that plants require to thrive, light must fall within a certain range of color temperatures. Starting at roughly 5,000 Kelvins, the ideal color temperature for succulents will provide your succulents cool, full-spectrum light that closely resembles sunlight.
How much heat is emitted by the light?
Finally, it is crucial to understand how much heat the grow lights emit. If they produce a lot of heat, you can experience a problem with the temperature in the space where you grow your succulents, which would require you to invest extra money in a reliable ventilation or cooling system. Additionally, if lights produce a lot of heat, you will need to situate your plants farther away from the lights in order to prevent them from burning them. Your plants may not receive enough light as a result. Some typical grow lights are known to emit a lot of heat, while others remain cool to the touch even after being on for 24 hours. Make sure a grow light doesn’t produce too much heat before you buy one.
I would advise you to purchase T5 grow lights since they have all the qualities of a good grow light and I have experience working with many various types of grow lights. Their diameter is 5 eights of an inch. T5 grow lights are available in a variety of configurations, including two different lengths (2 ft and 4 ft bulbs), numerous different bulb counts (from 1 to 12 bulbs in one fixture), various efficiency types (Normal Output (NO), High Output (HO), and Very High Output (VHO), and various color temperature varieties (from only 2,900 Kelvins up to 10,000 Kelvins). I typically use high output (HO) bulbs because a 2 foot HO T5 bulb uses just 24 watts and produces 2,000 lumens, compared to a 4 foot long high output (HO) T5 bulb that uses 54 watts and produces 5,000 lumens. You obtain incredibly effective light that is ideal for succulents if you mix one or the other length bulbs in a group of two or more bulbs and choose bulbs that are in the color temperature of 6,500 Kelvins.
Although choosing the correct artificial light is an important aspect of effectively growing your plants in an indoor garden, there are a few other factors you should be aware of in order to do even better.
Be aware of the height at which you should hang your plant canopy’ grow lights.
Knowing how high to hang your grow lights is essential since it affects how much light the plants receive. You must hang grow lights so that they may provide the maximum amount of light to the plants without overheating them by radiating heat, regardless of whether you select T5 fixtures or select other grow lights. In order to reduce the risk of your grow lights burning and harming your plants, I would first advise placing any grow light at least 6 to 8 inches away from the tops of your succulents. You can later move your lighting fixtures closer to the succulents if you discover that they don’t emit heat and are cold to the touch (like T5 grow lights).
Determine the light cycle
Because there won’t be a sun to determine when plants receive light, you must determine the plants’ light cycle while growing plants indoors under grow lights. Knowing your light cycles will help you grow your succulents more quickly. Indoor gardens use light cycles to replicate day and night circumstances. Succulents will also develop more quickly if you give them more light, which is a common rule of thumb for growing any plants under lights. If you’re overwintering the plants, I’d recommend starting with a 20/4 light cycle for the succulents. This means leaving the lights on for 20 hours a day, turning them off for 4 hours, and then gradually extending the darkness time until the light cycle is 16/8 (light/dark). Succulents require knowledge of the winter solstice so they can begin their dormant period. If you use grow lights all year for your succulents, you may set the light cycle to 24/0 or 20/4 in the summer to help them develop swiftly and flourish.
Learn how frequently to water your succulents.
Finally, it should be noted that watering is equally crucial because both inadequate and excessive watering might harm your plants. Even if you’re using grow lights to simulate summer, you still need to water the succulents during the summer by watering them once the soil is dry. Even if succulents are cultivated indoors, things change over the winter. Succulents use substantially less water while they are dormant throughout the winter or an imitation of winter since they are either growing very slowly or not at all. So, how frequently should you water succulents in the winter? In general, I’d advise watering them every two weeks, but if the room is hot, you’ll need to water them more frequently because the heat will cause them to dry out more quickly. Looking at the soil in which succulents are growing will tell you how frequently they need watering during the winter. Allow the soil to dry up completely before giving succulents approximately a week to absorb the water before you water them again to prevent overwatering.
January 2017 addition: