does a regular light bulb put out enough light spectrum to keep a house plant alive with no natural sunlight?

Answer 1

No, it does not. The most important factor determining which plants you can successfully maintain indoors is how much light is available. Many of our homes, apartments, condos and little, monastic cells of offices are darker that we think they are! Plants use light to manufacture their own food (photosynthesis) so if the light levels are not adequate the poor things have to rely on food they stored when they lived in the nursery. Once they run out of food they keel over like fashion models.
At the other end of the light issue a number of the plants commonly thought of as houseplants grow as understory plants in the wild and would burn if exposed to high light levels. Even plants that would normally be happiest in bright light will burn if suddenly placed in light that is more intense than what they are used to. You can almost always temporarily move a plant into a lower light situation, for up to a week, without any ill effects, but it can take up to three weeks to acclimate them to brighter light.
If a northern exposure is all that is available, or if you have a windowless, cattle-fattening pen like mine, instead of an office, you may have to resort to artificial light. If the natural light in the room is too dim you can supplement it by burning a conventional, incandescent bulb nearby for 3 to 4 hours in the early evening. If there is no natural light source you will have to use either full spectrum light bulbs, such as Gro-Lux or Vita-Lite, or fluorescent and incandescent bulbs in combination, so that the plants receive both red and blue wavelengths of light. Most indoor plants require at least 200 foot-candles of light over a 12-hour period to remain healthy.

Answer 2

There are some plants that need very little light that might do OK. However, to answer your question specifically...no, a regular incandescent lamp (bulb) will not work very well. There are a lot of "grow" lights out there, although most are fluorescent. You might try to find a compact fluorescent (CFL) that is made for growing plants, and it will work find for reading.

Answer 3

A regular light bulb (incandescent) produces most wave lengths that plants need, except blue. "Gro-lights" have this extra blue. You can also duplicate a complete light spectrum by using a combination of incandescent and fluorescent (which produces the missing blue).

Answer 4

Some plants yes, some plants no.
In my opinion, only the very low light plants like
Snake Plant (Sansevieria trifasciata)
or philodendron.

Answer 5

U need Wide Spectrum bulbs & I believe they're only available in a Flourescent (sp) bulb

Answer 6

Yes