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Have you ever wondered what would happen if you kept a succulent in a room with no windows? Would it still thrive and stay healthy? I was pretty sure what the answer would be since I knew that succulents and cacti need plenty of sunshine to survive. Recently I found out by accident what happens when succulents don’t get enough sunlight.
You can keep a succulent in a room with no windows, or a room with very little sunlight for a short time and it will still stay healthy, but only for a short time. You must eventually move it to where it can receive some sunlight or use LED plant lights for it to thrive In the long term.
Succulents need several hours of indirect sunlight each day. When they don’t get enough light they will become spindly, and will even become pale and weak and eventually die off.
I found out firsthand what happens when a succulent is left in a room with very low natural lighting, in this case, it was a snake plant that was placed in a dark corner of my home.
Can a Succulent Survive in a Room With no Windows, or With Low Light?
Succulents can survive without light for only short periods of time, although some varieties do better with low-light situations than others.
Through experience, I have found that they generally do alright for about a month or two, but not much longer than that.
After a month or two of low light conditions, they tend to get “leggy” or spindly. This is because they are trying to reach the nearest available light source. If you move the plants to where they have enough sunlight before they become leggy, they will be fine.
Here is an example of a succulent kept in a room without any sunlight, or very low light.
When we moved to this house there was so much to do that I forgot about this one snake plant. It was in the house when we moved in and had been neglected for some time, but I kept it, thinking I could revive it once we had settled in. It was placed in a dark corner of my kitchen where it didn’t receive any light at all, not even indirect light. I had planned to move it to the sunroom and put another plant in its place, but that didn’t happen.
By the time I realized what I had done to this plant it was almost too late.
The lack of sunlight (and the general neglect) caused the plant to grow leaves that were spindly and weak.
It has been my experience that snake plants can tolerate low light conditions more than most other succulents, but they too, at some point will require some light to remain healthy.
Ways to Keep Succulents Healthy in a Room with Low Light
After repairing the damage caused to my snake plant by repotting it in new soil and removing the dead growth caused by my neglect, I needed a plan of action to bring it back to health and to keep it healthy.
I still wanted a plant display in that dark corner of my kitchen, so my plan of action was this: if I want to keep a succulent in a room that is dark or has low light conditions (such as a room with no windows at all) what I need to do is to rotate my plant every couple months to another room that has windows, where it can receive bright, but indirect sunlight. By doing this I will give my plant a chance to stay healthy and thrive.
I am now following this plan of action with my snake plant. After a month or two in my kitchen, I will move it to my sunroom where it will receive plenty of light.
While it is in the sunroom it will receive the light that it needs to grow and stay healthy. In the meantime, I will move another succulent out of the sunroom to take its place in the kitchen.
By switching the plants out in this manner I can keep my succulents healthy and still enjoy having a succulent display in my kitchen corner.
LED Plant Lights as an Alternative to Natural Light.
There is an alternative to periodically rotating my plants between a dark room and a room with sufficient natural light. I can use a plant light! My plants will receive all the sunlight they need if I use a plant light.
LED plant lights are a low-cost and energy-efficient way to supplement the sunlight that my plants need to thrive and stay healthy. These lights can help create an eye-catching display in that corner of my kitchen and will even brighten up my kitchen at the same time.
Ultimately, I will be adding a stand-alone LED plant light to my display and will not have to switch my plants out to keep them healthy since they will get all the light they need from that plant light.
Choosing LED Plant Lights for Your Succulents
I have found that I can buy LED plant lights at my local hardware stores such as Lowe’s, Home Depot, or even our local Garden Centers. I bought some both locally and also online at Amazon when I was setting up supplemental Lighting in my sunroom.
I like to use these for starting my succulents and other seedlings and to keep my plants healthy during the winter.
In my search for plant lights, I found that my local stores only have a limited selection to choose from and most of those were very utilitarian in design. Fortunately, that was what I was looking for at the time. I needed the type of LED light that could be attached to a shelf system and I didn’t care about the aesthetics much as long as they worked and didn’t take up too much space.
But when it comes to displaying my succulents in the living areas of my home, such as the kitchen, living room, or bedrooms, I want something more attractive and something that can even showcase my succulents in an eye-catching display.
I have found that Amazon has a good variety of LED lights that you can choose from. They have the types of LED lights you can attach to a shelf system (as mentioned above), but they also have interesting and attractive ones that can be used in a display.
For my kitchen succulent, I would like to use a plant light (like this) designed to be used only with one pot or container at a time since it would fit very well in my home.
So in Conclusion:
What have I learned from my experience?
First, I learned through this experience that succulents don’t do well in dark rooms. This is something I already knew, but had never put it to the test before and although snake plants do well in low-light conditions, they still need some light.
The second thing is that I can still keep my succulents in low light conditions for limited times and just rotate them out with others and they will still stay healthy.
The third thing I learned is that attractive LED plant lights can help display my succulents and improve the looks of any room.