"Monster" Neo (Amami Island ?) in bloom
 

I lucked into this plant last summer - found it tucked between much larger orchids at a retail nursery/garden center. It had finished blooming - they normally pull them off the shelf when they have finished; I think this may have been missed due to it's more diminutive size among the much larger plants. Because it had finished blooming, I asked for, and received a discount! It would have been a bargain before the discount (marked at $20! $16 after discount!) ;) Ten fans!

The tag just says "Neofinetia falcata" - due to it's size, I wonder if it might be the Amami Island variety ?? Leaf span on the largest fans is 7.5 - 8 inches. I don't know how the size of the blooms compares to the 'standard' Neo - have included pix with a nickel for size comparison. I have also included a pic showing the size difference between this and another Neo I have.

There is a subtle pink hue to the blooms, most noticeably on the spurs - I think you can see it a bit in some of the photos.

Spikes started growing at different times - the earliest, which was ahead of the others by a few weeks, just finished blooming. Currently there are three spikes blooming, total of 12 blooms. Two more spikes not yet blooming, total of 11 buds :biggrin: (The spike that just finished blooming had 3 blooms.)

Thanks for looking :)

How wonderful! My ONE flower should be open by Monday LOL.

aww - I bet it will be fabulous! I was lucky to find such a big plant - and that still fit into my extremely tight budget. I'll be happy if my new, smaller one gets one bloom next year ;)

I watered all my plants today and the mounted neo's are romping away like crazy!!!! WOOOHOOO! Next year should see a 1000% increase in flower numbers lol.

woo hoo! that's awesome! :D I hope my small mounted one may be big enough to bloom next year - idk ;p but it's been growing great!

Good growing and happy Neo season!

thanks Tracy! :blushing:

That is an amazing find!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gotta love that they cant charge full price for out of bloom plants! thats how i first started building me collection. i would go to my local greenhouse and i would see an orchid i loved and i would wait sometimes unsuccessfully for the plant to be out of bloom and for some one not to buy it, and then when it was finished i would take it to the counter and he would mark down 34$ plants to anywhere from 5$-10$ love that they have to do that!!!!

What a great deal! I like that cool pot you have it in also, it looks good in there.

Hehe - I'm pretty sure if I had just walked to the register with this plant, I would have been charged the marked price, but I have read OB members posting that they would ask for, and sometimes get, a discount on orchids that had finished blooming, so I figured it didn't hurt to ask (I might have paid the marked price anyway, as it was still a bargain for a neo of this size). I would have loved a bigger discount, like you have gotten, but like I said, for being a neo, and such a big one - it was a fabulous bargain!

You've got some great bargains - sort of annoying how much more they charge for blooming orchids ...

The day I got this, I was riding my bike, so I figured I was 'safe' to look at the orchids, as I couldn't really bring one home - fortunately, Neos (even really big ones, like this) are small enough to tuck into a backpack ;)