Neofinetia falcata watering

[ang709]

I know a lot of members here grow Neos, so I was wondering if you could tell me:

1) How often you water during the growing season
2) How often you water in the winter
3) How you have your Neo potted (traditional way for Neos, or in bark, etc) since that has a bearing on watering

I've had my Neo for only one month now, but I am looking ahead to this winter when I will be gone for a month. I'm trying to figure out how often to tell the plant sitter to water it. Thank you.

[Phyrex]

I've had one for over a year now and bloomed it successfully by:
1 Keeping them moist all the time during growing season;
2 Not watering in the winter except for the occasional misting;
3 I have mine potted the trational way in sphag

For your month away in the winter it should do fine without watering or misting.

There are many experienced Neo growers on the forum here so there will be plenty of help coming soon

[Brutal_Dreamer]

I saw this thread yesterday, but don't have any special advice. Here is what we do:

1. & 2. We water all of our orchids twice a week during the hot months and once a week during the winter months. The orchids that usually require a break in the winter from being watered still get some water, but generally not like the rest of the collection. Since we grow in a greenhouse (and it is fairly packed) it would be hard to completely withhold water.
3. We have a couple of neos and several neo crosses. Most are potted in a very open mix (lava rock, large bark) the smaller (newest) are potted in a bark mix, but as they grow-up, we will move them to baskets or larger pots with lava rock. When they are small, they need a bit more water than they would get being potted in lava rock. We also drape Spanish (live) moss over the roots and lava rock. This looks cool in the gh and I believe it helps hold the moisture a bit longer around the roots. (but maybe it just looks cool??) lol.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
BD

[Ron-NY]

I keep mine cool and dry in the winter with just occasional watering ...moist during growth

[Germinatorman]

I have two of the regular neos. and one bean leaf neo. and all of mine are in sphag. and watered once a week year round with misting 3 times a week. My bean leaf was in coconut fiber and not doing well - could not keep it moist enough so I moved it into sphag. They also receive fertilizer weekly in a weak solution. RO water and grown kinda on the intermediate to warm side. I usually get two bloom periods per year on the regular neos. and the bean leaf is new, has not bloomed yet.

[ang709]

Thank you for the replies.