Do plants grow at night?

I asked expert Willeke te Flierhaar and the answer is yes! Willeke works at Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam, a leading botanical garden in the Dutch capital. ‘Plants grow by day and by night,’ she says. ‘It’s true that plants need light to grow, but they can keep on growing in the dark.’

Plants can absorb water at night. But they do so more slowly than during the day. This is because photosynthesis only happens during daytime. Photosynthesis is a process by which plants turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose. They need the energy from light to do this, so it can’t be done in the dark.

A dark shed

‘A lot of research is being done on plants in the dark,’ Willeke reveals. ‘In the UK, for example, rhubarb is grown in a big dark shed. Farmers hope that this will actually make the plants grow faster. There’s still so much to discover about exactly what plants get up to in the dark!’

Answered by Rik Peters