Determine the optimal lighting requirements for your particular plant or plants to thrive if they were living outdoors. Figure out the intensity of light and for how many hours a day it is needed. Often this information is on the plant tag or little plastic pick stuck in the soil of your plant. Online garden resources can help you make the determination if your plant is unmarked. This is what you need to mimic indoors with LEDs. If your plants grow outdoors in shade they need less light indoors. If they are vegetables and grow in full sun for 14 hours per day outdoors then that is the bar you must meet in order for the plant to thrive indoors.

Provide a mix of red spectrum and blue spectrum LEDs. Plant photosynthesis is most responsive to these two spectrums. According to research conducted by NASA, mixing at least 80 percent red LEDs and roughly 20 percent blue LEDs is a successful ratio for growing plants indoors. You can easily switch out a few of the blue LEDs for white without harming the plant growth. This will allow you to see what’s happening with your plants much more readily because white LEDs have a spectrum of green, yellow and orange, which is more easily visible to the human eye.

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