Bringing greenery into our home can boost our mood, improve our wellbeing and, of course, add a stylish finishing touch to any room. But growing healthy plants indoors isn’t always as easy as popping a few pots on the windowsill. Whether it’s short winter days or a lack of natural sunlight in the room, plants may struggle to thrive inside.
Luckily, grow lights can help. By recreating specific wavelengths of light, they can mimic natural sunlight to help plants grow in dark areas. Most of the best grow lights for indoor plants emit blue light to trigger stem and leaf growth, and red light to help with flowering and fruiting.
While grow lights can feature lots of different technologies, most of the ones designed for the home use coloured LEDs.
Here's more on Smart Gardens, which also use grow lights
Grow lights for indoor plants
Growing Lamp with 3/9/12H Automatic Timer
For a quick, simple and affordable solution, try this grow light available on Amazon. It has an adjustable stand, which makes it easy to stick into existing pots and containers. Just extend the arm between 17cm and 66cm, and tilt the head to suit your plants.
Once it’s in position, you’ll be able to choose between three colour options: cold white, natural white and red light. There are 10 brightness levels and three automatic timing functions, so you can programme your lamp to turn on for three, nine or 12 hours at a time.
Elho Coen Light Garden
From Elho comes this stylish tabletop grow light kit, complete with a tray to hold extra water. Able to accommodate several pots at once, it’s 39cm wide, 27cm deep and 48cm tall.
The kit keeps things simple when it comes to functions, with one automatic timer feature, which turns the light on for 12, 15 or 18 hours.
As an added bonus, this grow light is an eco-friendly choice. Not only is it made from recycled plastic with wind energy, but it’s also 100% recyclable and arrives in recyclable packaging.
Pianta 18W Full Spectrum LED Grow Light
If you don’t want to buy a new grow light, why not just switch the bulbs in one of your existing lamps? This bulb from Pianta emits all the right light frequencies to help your plants flourish, and screws into standard E27 fixtures.
It has a colour temperature of 3,400k, so it sits somewhere between warm white and natural daylight, and shouldn’t look too out of place in your home.
As this is just a bulb, there’s no in-built timer, so you’re free to switch your lamp on and off as you choose. The makers suggest turning it on for a few hours for plants in natural light, and for 8-16 hours for other pots around your home.
Plant grow light
- Buy now from Dobbies (£64.99), Elho (£97.01)
With its minimal design features and chic green and grey colouring, this has to be one of the best grow lights for indoor plants. It’s another fantastic option from Elho, and thanks to its smart design, it could be mistaken for just another desk lamp in your home.
The bonus, of course, is the handy tray, which stores extra water to feed your plants while you’re away. Plus, there’s an automatic timer to switch on the light for 15 hours daily to mimic the natural day/night cycle.
Garland Micro Grow Light Garden
Ideal for herbs, leafy greens and seedlings, this grow light garden comes with four reusable grow trays. The light is adjustable, so you can move it up to 38cm above the base as your plants develop. Plus, there’s a raised platform with matting to help them drink in water while you’re away.
The makers have built in special reflectors to angle light towards your plants and reduce the amount of heat emitted.
Happily, this grow light is also made from recycled plastic with aluminium for durability.
Leah light
Simple and clutter-free, this grow light sits in your plant pots for a little extra light. The real standout feature here is its height; the stand can extend from 36cm up to 100cm, so it’s a great choice for large houseplants you might struggle to fit under smaller lamps.
The light itself is magenta in tone, to help support leaf and bud growth. It’ll turn on and off automatically to recreate the natural day/night cycle outside.
Sondiko Grow Light
If you’ve got a lot of plants in your home, try this four-armed grow light. Each set of lights sits on a flexible arm, which you can twist to get the best angle for your pots.
There are also nine brightness levels and an automatic timer to give your plants three, nine or 12 hours of extra light each day. Alternatively, turn the lamp on and off yourself to customise the lightning pattern.
LED Grow Light
- Buy now from Expondo (£38.99)
A little closer to a commercial grow light in design, this lamp comes with a sturdy hanging kit to suspend it in your chosen spot. It comes with 250 LEDs to provide plenty of light and has a 120° beam to cover a wide area.
The brand behind this hanging light says it’ll help nurture plants at every growth stage, and works well for herbs, veg and flowers.
For similar options try this 1,200W LED grow light and 110W LED grow light.
Grow Light Bar for Indoor Plants
This 33.5cm LED bar is one of the best grow lights for indoor plants underneath shelves or cupboard units. Just use the screws or adhesive patches to attach it to the underside of a fixed surface.
Thanks to the timer function, it’ll turn on for two, four or eight hours at the same time every day. There are four brightness levels, so you can choose the right intensity of light for your plants, their growth stage and the time of year.
What to consider when buying indoor grow lights
There’s a whole host of different grow lights out there, from standalone bulbs to lamp-style gadgets and much larger light strips and hanging panels you attach to shelves or ceilings. Our round-up includes the best grow lights for indoor plants we’ve found, but here are a few factors to consider when choosing the right option for you.
Types of plants
Most grow lights include automatic timers, which turn the light on for several hours every day. While some have a choice of timer settings, others have one mode and are only suited to certain plants.
In general, herbs and leafy greens flourish under grow lights, but sun-loving and shade-loving plants could suffer with the wrong amount of light. To bloom, some flowers like chrysanthemum and poinsettia need short days, while others like African violets and tuberous begonias wait for longer days.
So, it’s worth doing a bit of research to make sure your chosen grow light can cater for the plants you’re growing.
Bulbs
Like many other plants, ones grown from bulbs can benefit from artificial light when kept indoors. You could use a grow lamp to nurture species like tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and amaryllis – just be sure to check their specific requirements. Some bulbs need a period of complete darkness to stimulate root growth before they flower.
Heat
Some grow lights produce more heat than others, which can have a significant effect on your plants’ development. While many grow lamps now use energy-efficient LEDs and tend to give off less heat than other types of lights, some designs like HID lights can emit a lot.
Energy-efficient lighting can protect your plants from high temperatures, but it should also last longer and save you money on your electricity bill.
No matter which type of grow light you buy, make sure to place it far enough away from your plants to avoid scorching the leaves. For LEDs, a foot or two away should be plenty.
PPF and PPFD
These acronyms may seem overly technical but they can be important when it comes to finding the best grow lights for indoor plants. PPF (photosynthetic photon flux) describes the amount of light leaving a light source per second, while PPFD (photosynthetic photon flux density) is the amount of light hitting a surface per second per metre squared.
Some retailers list their grow lights’ PPFD values, making it easier to find out whether they’d emit enough light to cover all your plants in one area. In an ideal world, you’d research the ideal PPFD values for your plants and find a corresponding grow light – although this isn’t always possible.
Other factors to consider
Aside from plant types, heat and PPFD values, you may want to consider:
- The type of light emitted from the grow light (look for red and blue light in particular)
- The installation process – are you prepared to attach light strips to the underside of shelves or to your ceiling, or are you looking for a simple lamp you can place near your pots?
- Extra features like on/off timers, dimmer switches and adjustable hanging heights
- Cost
For more great accessories for your house plants, see: