Neo and the 7 spikes

[RJSquirrel]

yup cant see em all yet but theres 7 spikes on this Neo

My 1st attempt at mounding Im not happy with bec I dont have the proper long fibered moss for it. So I mounded it wakayama style..

[Lana]

Oh it looks great! I received my Neo today. Ordered it after being inspired by your previous post about this plant, so now let me ask you what your growing conditions are for this beauty. I'd hate to make mine uncomfortable

[RJSquirrel]

65'degree night and 75'degree days

Bright east window mornings
(gets hotter than bright after about 10:30 am so I take them ,plants, out at about 11 am bec they like a little heat )..I move them to the rack in the afternoons under 6 (34) watt fluorescents about 12" inches from them. Finishes off the drying if needed and gives them more light

Watering make sure you water enough to get the roots nice and moist but not so much that the moss stays soaking wet overnight..Some moisture always, but not soaked to where it takes a few days to dry out. Ideally you want to water in the AM and have it almost dry at night when you put them to bed( lights out)..

The roots are outside the mound inside the pot theres a net basket under the moss hill and the roots are covering the outside of the moss inside the pot for lots of air..the roots like lots of air and why if you water it rightly they stay green and pretty not brown and mooshy


like some code

I want some of the 5A long fibered moss but check the price its like 25 bucks for 100 grams.. ouch!!!

the neo pots oooooooo man I got mine in a orchid goblet instead..My Neo lives in the ghetto by neo standards. Im going to have up upgrade my lifestyle so my plants dont have to be ashamed of what they live in

[Lana]

Hehehe! Well, mine is pretty ghetto, too. I did what I could mounding my Neo with the moss I had... also not the long fibered kind. Oh well. I checked some videos online and tried to re-create it as much as I could. I also didn't have the fancy pretty pot, so my chid ended up tucked into a simple small clay pot.
So my question is how exactly do you water it? Do you pour water on top of the mound? Spray until it gets really wet? Or what?

[RJSquirrel]

I just spray it down with my little ZEP handy mister..

doesn't take much water at all to get a good simulated rain storm for em I like the water to drip out the bottom so I know I got all the roots. Plus with the holes in the sides of my neo goblet I can see the roots.. I been watching them and how long it takes for them to react to the water. Doesnt take much at all for the roots to turn apple green and you know they happy.

and yes that lady that mounds the neos on youtube shes got it down and has good moss tooo I want some that moss!!!

[Becca]

Mounding is never easy, even with the long fibered moss. And if your looking for a good price on the stuff Calwest Tropicals has the best price http://www.calwesttropical.com/index...ies/moss....to bad I didn't find this out until after I paid double the price on the 500g size through OrchidWeb! Anyways...it's nice to see some spikes on your neo....I have a neo hybrid that has a spike just forming....I'm so excited! It will be my first official rebloom after several years!

[Lana]

RJ, thank you for your response! And Becca, thank you for that link!

[DelawareJim]

Congratulations.

Yeah, like everything else the Japanese do, the moss mound is an art form in itself. All I can say is practice, practice, practice. My first one's were using regular sphag too and while not pretty, they worked. After 2 or 3 years at it, they're still pretty ugly, but I'm getting better.

Cheers.
Jim

[RJSquirrel]

Thanks!!

The mounding . I want to re do it but I had it out of the pot so much already with it spiking. I need to leave it alone until its bloomed. I can use other plants to practice my technique on and not disturb this one again till I feel more skilled at wrapping and mounding. It just looked easy..

At least 7 growths in there but I like them all right there in one place ..Ill be sure to post the update when the blooms are opened..

[camille1585]

Nice pic!!
I gave up with Neos, all mine ever did was sit there and maybe put out a few new growths. So I wasn't too sad when they died in the package that got lost en route to an orchidsitter a year ago. I'd love to try again, but I'm afraid that it's going to be no better!

For the sphag, a small 150g bag of long strand sphag will go a long way if you only use it for the outside of the mound. But I did get pretty good at using normal sphag for the mounds. I went through my entire bag of sphag to pull out the longer pieces and then tucked one end under a root at the base of the root, folded it over the root and then wrapped it diagonally across the mound to stuff the other end into the pot, then repeat with more. I gave up trying to get it to go around the mound correctly