Nope - incandescent cannot grow anything. My best guess the lady you are talking about had a pretty good ambient light - and an addition of the incandescent complemented it just right.

I do not know what's wrong in adding a fluorescent light in a living room - I read a book about light gardening - and they had very interesting suggestions where you can put it and make a room cheer up - including fireplace and between the steps of the stairs. The main thing you need some kind of hood = so nobody actually is looking at the tube itself.

Regarding the oak table in a corner. You can use the compact fluorescent in your lamp - one of these spiral thingies- close to the equivalent to 100wt incandescent - something like 27wt of the real use. You can buy a grow light - a single plant lamp with a special bulb - it is about $58 and last time I saw it in violetshowcase.com.

Good Luck

irina

I was growing strictly in the windowsills when the inevitable happened: the plants grew too large to fit. I decided to try putting them under a light in the living room, which is a very dark room.

{{gwi:362642}}

The light was a 3-way, on at the highest 150 watt setting. The plants still wanted more light so I raised them closer to the bulb. They grew and bloomed okay, but not great as you can see. In the red ones in front (Arapahoes) you can see that the leaves are lifting up and there are space gaps between the leaves and long stems from insufficient light. I ended up moving the plants.

A 60 watt light probably wouldn't be enough for your plants unless as Irina said there was a lot of additional natural light. You could use it to temporarily display blooming plants though. I like her idea of getting one of the grow lights for an attractive permanent display.

Thanks! Hopefully someone can answer this by early tomorrow morning when I make a run to Walmart.

I decided to go ahead and put a compact fluorescent bulb in the lamp.

The highest wattage the lamp takes in incandescent is 60watts.

What wattage should I buy for the flourescent bulb? Do they come equally, like 60w incan. = 60 watt flu.?

Can you tell I'm electrically impaired? lol

OR..would a 60w fluorescent bulb be too much or too little?

If I used a higher wattage in fluorescent, will I be overloading the outlet?

Get the one that says 100 wt light of 27 wt used or something. They print on a package - what is an equivalent of the incandescent bulb light they produce. The real use will be less than 60 and your table lamp will be ok.

irina

Thank you Irina! You have been a Godsend to me, and I know I've been such a pest. lol.

Pam

Pam -

You are very welcome. As I mentioned - there is no end to it until all horizontal surfaces are covered with violets.

;-))