If your houseplants are struggling, it's probably due to a lack of light. When you're growing specimen houseplants, such as large tropicals, you might need to provide some supplemental light. Specimen plants can be lighted with spotlight grow lamps--like the double barrel LED lights below.

Try growing foliage plants in one part of your home or office. If they are just not thriving, move them closer to an ambient light source. If that still doesn’t do the trick, add artificial light or switch to a lower-light species.

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You can use LED lamps that produce a single spectrum of light, and LED fixtures also come in varying combinations of single spectrums. Some even offer the option within the same fixture to switch from blue only to red only, or to run them together, when you want to shift from vegetative to flowering.

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Indoor Grown Edibles May Need Hand Pollination

No bees in your indoor grow tents? I doubt it! Then you’ll need to give certain plants, such as this cucumber, a hand with pollination if you want it to develop any fruit for harvest.

One very important thing to remember about growing fruits indoors: the flowers require pollination to develop fruit. Wind and pollinating insects would accomplish that work outdoors, but indoor gardeners must play the role of honeybee. You can use paintbrushes to move pollen from male flowers to females flowers.

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There are many types of pre-mixed potting soil for you to choose from; just make sure you select a blend specifically appropriate for seeds, larger indoor plant, or outdoor plants, as they will each have different characteristics.

Small seedlings can dry out quickly and die, so they need growing media that can hold adequate moisture, but they are also susceptible to many soil-borne fungal diseases brought on by excess moisture. Make sure your potting soil isn't too heavy, and drains well, for all of your indoor garden plants. Coir is an excellent addition to help balance moisture and drainage.

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Some crops don’t require dormancy or vernalization, but will bloom better or produce better harvests after they have gone dormant or had a chilling period. Sedum and salvias, for example, don’t require cold to flower, but if they get a period of cold they will grow more vigorously and can bloom earlier or better.

Salvia ‘Blue Marvel’ sports more vigorous growth and blooms with some winter chilling.

Gardening Under Lights Book

Given that many LED grow lamps combine only red and blue light, the pink- or purple-colored light they produce might not be the most attractive choice for your kitchen or living room. Pink light also causes your plants to look pink or purple instead of green.

This pink or purple light makes it hard to identify a nutrient deficiency, fungal disease, or pest problem. A multicolor white LED, or RGB LED, will give you a more standard white-colored light.

Gardening Under Lights Book

Seeds germinate at different speeds depending on the type of plant. Your seed packet will offer estimated germination times based on optimal temperature ranges, but you will likely germinate seeds much faster in a controlled environment with heat mats.

For example, I often have germination occur on lettuce seeds and mixed seeds of microgreens within only two to three days of seeding. Other seeds, such as bluebonnets, can take weeks. Temperature influences germination speeds.

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Different plants have different heat tolerances, so you may find that your tomato transplants can tolerate hotter temperatures while your lettuce plants scorch. If you notice browning, scorching, curling, or crispy leaves close to the lamp, increase the distance between the lamp and the plant.

This tomato has grown about 12 inches too close to the hot 400-watt HPS lamp, and its leaves are beginning to curl because of excess heat. I must raise the lamp to create more distance from the plant.

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