# Are plants confused by unnatural lighting cycles?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-plants-confused-by-unnatural-lighting-cycles/335315>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 12, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-plants-confused-by-unnatural-lighting-cycles/335315 "2005-12-12T21:29:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Emilio\_Lizardo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Emilio\_Lizardo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emilio_Lizardo)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-plants-confused-by-unnatural-lighting-cycles/335315/1 "2005-12-12T21:29:44Z")

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I have a few spider plants here at my office that I brought from home. My office is brightly lit, but it has no windows. So it’s light for 12 hours, dark for 12 hours, 5 days a week, then dark for 60 straight hours on weekends. Is that bad for my poor plants, or will they adjust?

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**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-plants-confused-by-unnatural-lighting-cycles/335315/2 "2005-12-12T22:05:19Z")

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It won’t kill them, but I think that it will disrupt their natural bloom cycles, which often depend on on the length of daylight.

Do we have a botanist in the house?

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**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-plants-confused-by-unnatural-lighting-cycles/335315/3 "2005-12-12T22:17:45Z")

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Blooming plants (with the possible exception of violets) often don’t do so great at offices. Foliage plants tend to _love_ the flourescents (you should see my violet go!) and don’t seem to mind any weird rhythms, but I’ve heard (on one of those gardening shows) not to bring in flowering plants.

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**Author:** ![Fridgemagnet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/22d042/32.png) [@Fridgemagnet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fridgemagnet)\
**Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-plants-confused-by-unnatural-lighting-cycles/335315/4 "2005-12-12T22:18:25Z")

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Aye, a couple of days in the dark won’t do them any favours, and they’ll soon look limp and lifeless if it’s doing them serious harm.

**Sattua** is quite correct, spider plants are among the species that flower according to day length (or photoperiod). In this case [(cite)](http://mrec.ifas.ufl.edu/Foliage/folnotes/spider.htm) “the largest number of blooming offsets occur on plants receiving light for 12 hours/day or longer at intensities of 1500 to 2500 ft-c”.