Keeping plants alive is not always an easy task. Bright light, low light, indirect light, filtered light – all these sun requirements get a little confusing.
Since proper lighting is one of the most important factors in ensuring your seedlings are happy and healthy, it’s crucial to know the requirements of all the species you bring home, as well as the type of light your space has.
Windows facing different directions receive different types of light and the structures around them can directly interfere with this. You can have the biggest windows in the world, but if a building stands in front of them, the lighting levels are likely to change.
So you can become the most informed plant parent or just finally understand the meaning of these terms, let’s explain once and for all what brilliant, direct and indirect mean:
Explaining the different light levels
When gardening experts talk about light levels and requirements for plants, they are referring to the amount of light a species needs to carry out photosynthesis. As you can probably imagine, a seedling will die if it cannot produce food for itself.
The most commonly spoken types of light are direct, indirect bright, indirect medium and low.
What is direct light?
Direct light means the strongest intensity of the sun. Take into account where the sun is during the hottest parts of the day.
In that time, your seedlings placed in north or west facing windows will receive more than four hours of bright, unfiltered light (as long as you don’t have curtains or screens). This is great for desert species like cacti and succulents that are used to a lot of heat.
Remember that even if you have a window in these directions, if they are blocked by something like a building, trees, or covered with curtains or film, the amount of light will be affected. You can still keep plants in this window, but succulents and cacti may not do as well.
What is indirect light?
Indirect light welcomes plant types that live close to the forest floor in the wild, receiving filtered light from the leaves above. There are two types:
bright indirect light
Think of bright indirect light as the glare a few feet away from an unobstructed window, or perhaps directly into the window if passing through sheer curtains or a film. In nature, this light is what reaches tree-covered plants such as vines or smaller trees such as dracaena that live under the canopy of larger species in the rainforest.
At home, you can find bright indirect light from any window, no matter which way it faces. However, what matters here is the placement of your vessels.
Bright indirect light in a north-facing window will be just a few feet away, but blocked by a sheer curtain. You can also place the seedlings in an east- or west-facing window, where they get morning or evening light, depending on the direction.
However, as this type of lighting lasts only a few hours, it is not so intense for your branches. South-facing windows, despite having the least amount of light, end up offering bright indirect light for most of the day, so you can place your pots on the windowsill.
medium indirect light
At home, this type of light usually comes from a south-facing window. If you have windows facing east or west, this type of light will be six to eight feet away from the window, where it’s not as strong. For north-facing ones, it’s about 8-12 feet away.
Plants such as calatheas, ferns and some pothos live and grow in this type of light.
What is low light?
Low light levels are found in places where a small amount of light enters. Think of environments where windows are blocked by buildings and large trees or are positioned high on the wall and are small.
While some plants like ZZ and Saint George’s sword tolerate low light, they prefer and grow best in indirect light. There are no plants that love being in dim conditions all the time, they simply adapt to living in such a location.
*Via MyDomaine