Newbie here to Neostylis Lou Sneary Bluebird

[Paul Mc]

Hello everyone,

After drooling over neo's for such a long time, especially given their historical background which I am in love with, I finally bit the bullet and bought the Neostylis Lous Sneary Bluebird. I understand it is one of the easier ones to grow, and most tolerant of newbies like me.

I've spent the afternoon reading and researching here on OB, including watching videos and looking at pictures. While I would love to set my Neostylis up in a traditional ball of sphag in a really cool and authentic looking pot, I do not know what the benefits are of doing this traditional method over just putting it in a basket or a pot with good draining medium. Nor do I know any of the downsides.

I believe the sphag method would be best as I have 30 to 40% humidity during the winter here, and probably without the hole in the middle of the sphag ball.

Any advice to a newbie on my new baby and care for it? Any advice where to find a traditional but relatively cheap Japanese neofinetia pot and supplies?

[camille1585]

How about growing it in a vase like Ryan is doing? Neo in Glass
He has a Neo and Neostylis growing like that and his experiment seems to be working out well.

If you do decide to stick to the traditional sphag mound method I would still consider leaving a hole in it. If you leave it as a solid mound, in low humidity the outer layer will dry out very fast, and the core will still stay quite wet, making watering tricky. That the trouble I had with my Neos. The hollow mound will help the sphag dry out evenly. You don't have to use sphag, these will also grow well in bark based mixes too.

[richardblair]

hey paul. i agree with camille about leaving the hole in the moss. i grow alot of neo species as well as the hybrids. i have tried growing the hybrids many different ways but eventually decided the traditional moss mound worked best for me. it keeps all my plants on pretty much the same watering schedule and i grow everything indoors on a windowsill which cuts back on the amount of humidity. so the moss dries out within 5 days. my hybrids including my bluebird have grown better like this. the only thing is their roots are thicker and hang down out of the plastic neo pots but i like the way it looks.