Choosing to cultivate plants indoors is a logical idea, because plants both add to the household decoration and indoor situations allow for the cultivation of more rare or interesting plants that could not survive out in the normal garden. Growing with a HPS lamp is a way to ensure that these plants are receiving the proper levels of heat and artificial sunlight that they need to grow in the healthiest manner possible. Different plants will have different needs, of course. For instance, vegetable gardens are used to being out in the full sunlight and so will require a higher light and heat output than those plants that are used to growing in cool, shady areas.
As a plant grows larger, it will require more light; making growing with HPS light bulbs a learning and growing process. The lighting will need to be adjusted as the plant grows and close care must be paid to this rate. Plants also require both light and dark periods to simulate the effects of night and day, so the bulbs will need to be put on some sort of a timer system to switch on and off at regular intervals, be this manual or automatic.
Growing with HPS lamps as opposed to other types of growing lamps has been shown to stimulate a stronger flowering impulse in the plant, making this an ideal sort of lighting scheme for fruiting or flowering plants that a person is expecting a yield from. High pressure sodium lamps like the Hortilux Super HPS are ideal for use during the specific flowering phase of a plant’s life cycle and should be considered particularly for this time period by the indoor gardener who is looking to maximize a plant’s productivity. Generally speaking, this type of lamp produces illumination on the orange/red warm side of the color spectrum.
Again, growing with HPS light bulbs is most recommended during the second, reproductive phase of a plant’s life cycle, though they can be suitable at any point during the indoor growing process. This depends on the type of plant a person is growing, and what sort of results the gardener wishes. Because they stimulate strong growth, if a person really wants to push the plant growth, this is a good option for all parts of the life cycle. This is especially true for those plants used to strong sunlight. The best method for indoor plant growth, however, is usually to rotate a series of different types of lighting schemes, depending on the point in the plant’s life cycle.
