Episode 2 - Decoding Light

23-03-2022 • 1 hr 6 mins

Jess, Alicia and Mary explain artificial and natural light, the plant tag light requirements and also dig into soil a little. Mary learns that not all artificial lighting looks like it's out of Pineapple Express, Jess teaches a math trick and to Never Eat Shredded Wheat and Alicia learns the name Greg is more popular than Reg.

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Lighting Terms Cheat Sheet:

Direct Light - The sun shines directly through the window and lands on the plant. Cacti and succulents want bright direct light. East windows typically have direct light in early morning and West windows have afternoon direct light. South will have hot direct light throughout the day.

Indirect Light - Sunlight that doesn't land directly on the plant. This bounces of off something else prior to hitting the plant. Plants with this requirement typically like 6-8hrs of sun. East windows will typically have afternoon bright indirect light and West will have indirect morning light. North windows gets all indirect lower light.

Medium Light - Well lit room, but not in front of a window

Low Light - no direct light, all indirect throughout the day north facing window.

Full Sun to Part Shade - If you will cut sun out from this plant, you'd want to take out the afternoon sun (that you would get from West and South)- probably best for East window. However, might be ok for direct light window like West.

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Tips From this Episode:

- Get full spectrum grow lighting with red, blue, and white light OR have multiple bulbs with your favorite lights

- Get a well draining potting soil/potting mix (a good thing to look for is organic material). Do not get top soil.

- Till your compacted soil with chopsticks or a fork!

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Buzz Words from this Episode:

- Foliage - plant leaves collectively

- Full Spectrum Lights - meant to mimic sunlight - includes the range of all the wavelengths colors.

- Leggy - a plant that has a lot more stem than leaf. You will see this when a plant is stretching toward the sun.

- Foot-Candles - (AKA "Candle Feet" to the Plant Peeps) - a foot candle is a measurement of light intensity and is defined as the illuminance on a one-square foot surface from a uniform source of light.

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Plants Mentioned in this episode:

- Jade Plant (Crassula ovata) - also known as lucky plant, money plant or money tree

- Black Velvet Alocasia (Alocasia reginula) -

- Monstera adansonii - also known as swiss cheese, monkey mask or five holes plant

- Snake Plant (Dracaena trifasciata)

- Rubber Plant (Ficus elastica)

- European Cypress

- Chinese Evergreen (Aglaonema)

- Pothos (Philodendron scandens)

- Spider Plant (Chlorophytum comosum)

- Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum)