These days fluorescent grow lights (available in various color temperature ranging from 2800°K to 6000°K) are mostly used for starting seedlings and growing green leafy vegetables and herbs. Cool white fluorescent lights are also sometimes used for this purpose. In comparison to the above described lamps, fluorescent ones last much longer (for about 20,000 hours) and emit two times more lumens per watt of the consumed energy. In addition, they are quite cost-effective.

 High output fluorescent lamps are even stronger than standard ones: they produce an average 5,000 lumens per 54 watt bulb and can be purchased in warm (3000°K) and cool (6500°K) variants. Their life span is as many as 10,000 hours. Moreover, these lamps are very convenient to use in the indoor gardens with low ceilings due to the fixtures with extremely thin profiles.

 fluorescents (small lamps) are also available for purchase, being the good option to propagate plants and grow larger species. These lights are supplied with the special reflectors to better illuminate the growings. Fluorescents are also produced as cool (6500K) and warm (3000K) lamps with usable life span of almost 10,000 hours. 

 Finally, there are also hybrid high output fluorescent/HID lamps featuring cool burning combined with the penetration of high intensity discharge technology. Their advantages include even lighting and wide range of light colors, along with reasonable cost and electricity consumption when growing  plants indoors.

LED Grow Lamps

 LED grow lamps belong to the latest developments, which are nowadays successfully integrated into the indoor gardening. They are highly valued by the gardeners for the bright light they radiate, which is in addition of the exact colors necessary for the plants. Moreover, they do not produce much heat and do not need ballasts, consuming at the same time less electricity than some other types of lamps. Finally, they are long-lasting and quite inexpensive.

 A LED lamp is made of a number of narrow-spectrum blue LEDs and a much larger number of wide-spectrum red LEDs of specific wavelengths. They say High Power based LED grow lamps may be used for growing various plants indoor. On the other hand, these lights have a big week-point: they consist of the wavelengths perfectly seen by the humans, while plants may need other wavelengths for the ideal growth. Thus, luminous efficiency of LED lamps could have been better to be used for growing  plants indoors