Recurrently, plant parents come across these terms, but they don’t always know what they mean.
Keeping plants alive isn’t always an easy task. Bright light, low light, indirect light, filtered light – all these solar requirements create a bit of confusion.
Since proper lighting is one of the most important factors in ensuring your seedlings are happy and healthy, it is vital that you know the requirements of all the species you bring home, as well as the type of light in your space.
Windows facing different directions receive different types of light and surrounding structures can directly interfere with this. You may have the largest windows in the world, but if a building is in front of them, the lighting levels are likely to change.
Since you can become the most knowledgeable plant parent or just finally understand the meaning of these terms, let’s explain once and for all what bright, direct and indirect means:
Explain the different light levels
When gardening experts talk about lighting levels and requirements for plants, they are referring to the amount of light a species needs to perform photosynthesis. As you can probably imagine, a seedling will die if it is unable to produce food for itself.
The most commonly spoken types of light are direct, bright indirect, 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.
During this time, your seedlings placed in north- or west-facing windows will receive more than four hours of bright, unfiltered light (provided you don’t have curtains or curtains). This is great for desert species like cacti and succulents that are used to a lot of heat.
Keep in mind 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 suffer. You can still keep plants in this window, but succulents and cacti may not thrive as well.
What is indirect light?
Indirect light welcomes the types of plants that live near the forest floor in nature, receiving filtered light through the leaves above. There are two types:
bright indirect light
Think of bright indirect light as brightness just a few feet away from a clear window, or perhaps directly into the window if you are passing through sheer curtains or film. In nature, this light is what affects tree-covered plants like vines or smaller trees like dracaena that live under the canopy of larger species in the rainforest.
At home, you can find bright indirect light from any window, regardless of which direction it is facing. However, what matters here is the positioning of your ships.
Intense indirect light in a north-facing window will be a few meters away, but blocked by a transparent curtain. You can also place the seedlings in an east or west facing window, where they get light during the morning or evening, depending on the direction.
However, as this type of lighting only lasts a few hours, it isn’t as 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 1.8-2.4m away from the window, where it is not that strong. For those facing north, it is about 2.4-3.6m away.
Plants such as calathea, ferns and some pothos live and grow in this type of brightness.
What is low light?
Low light levels are found in places where a small amount of light enters. Think of rooms where windows are blocked by large buildings and trees or are set high in the wall and are small.
While some plants like ZZ and Espada-de-Saint-Gorge tolerate low light, they prefer and grow best in indirect light. There are no plants that like to always be in dark conditions, they simply adapt to living in such a place.
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Source: Terra
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