Are my cactus doomed?

[bartab]

I saw my wife unraveling a string of lights and went out a little later to see this. My heart sank. It looks brighter in the photo than in reality, but still is lit up in the evening for a few hours when it should be dark. My thought is to just hang a piece of really high percentage shade cloth between the lights and my plants. Sound reasonable?

[BennieAnTheJets]

Hm, if my husband had done this I would probably talk to him and try to reach a compromise, like: could we have the lights on the other side of the house and not by my cactus tables, or could we have the lights off unless we sit out and enjoy them so they would be off most of the time and only on on some occasions (saves electric bill costs and fossil fuel burn, too), or could you take them down since they interfere with my plants and we ad some nice decorations inside the house for you to enjoy instead (we have very cute little lights mounted in the kitchen - so much fun when cooking to have these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GU ... UTF8&psc=1 plus see photos, we have them run all around the counter top area and the sink - much better than outside since we get to enjoy them a lot more since we spend more time in the kitchen than on the deck)

As to the effect on the cacti, I don't really know how much it would affect them. Are the lights going to be on at night summer and winter or is this just a summer enhancement of the porch? Are the cacti close to the lights in the winter as well or do you move them in the winter to a different area? How many hours after dark are the lights on?

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Kitchen_lights_2.jpg (102.94 KiB) Viewed 1362 times

[mikethecactusguy]

The amount of lumens (brightness) is minimal. Enjoy the festive mood your partner created

[gemhunter178]

As someone who grows under lights (using LEDs) - I have them real close, and probably much brighter, for 10 hours a day and it's only the equivalent of "part sun" bordering full (when I move them outside to an area of only morning/afternoon sun, some will show signs of stress from too much light.)
As such, as closetguy has already said, I don't expect those lights to have noticeable effect on your plants with maybe one exception:
Some fall-blooming cacti, such as the "Thanksgiving" or "Christmas" Schlumbergera might use the shortening of days as a cue to flower, and lights may impact their flowering schedules.
Otherwise, I'd leave the lights be. The sun is much brighter/intense than any typical light one would have.

[esp_imaging]

I agree with Mike & Gemhunter. The LEDs are completely insiginficant compared to daylight (even very heavy clouded daylight), unless they are very close to the plants and on for a long time each day.

[mikethecactusguy]

The only effect may be on some night blooming species. I had a setiechinopsis Mirabilis. They only opened up at night. The first night I turned on a light to take a picture of the first flower. Pow. It closed up in 60 seconds. So I made sure to take pictures at dusk when they first opened and there was a bit of light left. Never turned on the 60 watt bulb again during the cycle.

[bartab]

Thanks guys for your help. I'm not going to make a big deal about it. I just always worried about interrupting the dark cycle but sounds like it will take more than these lights to do that.