Natural Light for Indoor Plants: What Plant Parents Get Wrong: Best of Growing Joy Replay

2026-03-05

Download

Natural light for indoor plants is one of the most misunderstood parts of plant care. Most plant parents think their homes are bright enough for houseplants… but the truth is, we often overestimate how much light our plants are actually getting. So we all know that the concept of bright indirect light is kind of a disaster. It’s one of the most confusing things in indoor plant care, and most plant parents wildly overestimate how much light they have in their homes. That’s exactly why I’m so excited to bring back this two-par...

So we all know that the concept of bright indirect light is kind of a disaster. It’s one of the most confusing things in indoor plant care, and most plant parents wildly overestimate how much light they have in their homes.

That’s exactly why I’m so excited to bring back this two-part series on natural light for indoor plants from the Best of Growing Joy collection.

In this episode, I’m joined by my dear friend, horticulturist and lighting expert Leslie Halleck, author of Gardening Under Lights, one of the best resources for understanding grow lights and indoor plant lighting. But before we even talk about grow lights, we need to understand something even more fundamental: how light actually works for plants.

In this conversation, Leslie and I get into the nitty-gritty of what light really means for houseplants, why the phrase “bright indirect light” causes so much confusion for plant parents, and how to actually measure light for your plants at home.

There’s also a free download in the show notes that walks you through three days of measuring the natural light in your home, so you can finally understand what your plants are really getting.

In this episode, we learn:

How Leslie came to be the lighting expert she is now
Measuring and understanding NATURAL light 101
The difference between the volume of light vs the brightness of light
What PAR is and why it is important for understand our natural light in our apartments
The most brilliant metaphor for light that will make even the science inept person understand light, photons and photosynthesis
How the direction your window faces affects the amount of light in your apartment, and a good rule of thumb to live by
What the heck “bright indirect light’ actually is!
Practical steps to understanding “bright indirect light” for your specific surrounding
How many feet away from your windowsill does “bright light” turn to “medium light” and then turn to “low light”
Why we overwater our plants (spoiler alert… it’s often because of your lighting conditions)
If sunbeams that move throughout your apartments make a different for your plants
Why experimenting with plant placement and light is crucial