Grow Lights let you grow healthy plants anywhere – a dim room, a shelf, or through winter – by supplying the light plants miss indoors. These guides match LED grow lights to the plant and the job, and explain how bright, how close and how long to run them.
Grow light guides
- Best Grow Lights for Indoor Plants – panels, bars, clip-ons and bulbs, matched to each plant.
- Best Grow Lights for Seedlings – stop leggy seedlings with the right light.
See also: grow lights for orchids.
Coming next: grow lights for succulents, for tropical plants, and LED vs fluorescent.
Grow lights for hydroponics
Indoor hydroponic plants rely on grow lights for photosynthesis just as soil-grown plants do — the same full-spectrum LED fixtures used for seedlings and houseplants suit hydroponic crops. Match intensity and daily light hours to what you are growing (leafy greens need less than fruiting crops). See hydroponics for beginners and hydroponic systems.
Related guides
Guides in this section
Do You Need a Grow Light?
If a spot gets less than a few hours of direct sun, or you’re starting seeds in late winter, a grow light usually makes the difference between healthy growth and stretched, leggy plants. What you need depends on the goal: grow lights for seedlings covers compact setups for starting seeds indoors, while grow lights for indoor plants covers longer-term supplemental lighting for houseplants that don’t get enough natural light year-round.