In the last few days I visited a prospective new client. When we looked at the areas where they wanted to put plants, the lighting was very low and also older model florescent light. They were concerned that plants might not live in their building and they were right.

Light can be thought of as having 3 main factors, quantity of light (brightness,) duration (number of hours per day) the light is on and last is quality of light (the right combination of colours in the light). Plants need light that imitates the natural light colour combinations in sunlight as well as enough brightness and hours of light per day. Plants can stand lower levels of light if the lights are on for more hours every day.

In this case the client’s lighting was not bright enough and the old florescent lighting was giving poor quality light from a plant’s point of view. Fortunately, this client is upgrading the lighting so we will wait until that is done to add plants to their building.