Thanks for the advice.

Hakumin: I have moved a few my tigers into a shadier part of my greenhouse (kishuu shirayuki, Byakko, Houmeiden, Hokage) and will see if that brings out the variegation a bit more. The Byakko had great colouration at one point, so I think it's my horticulture (not the genes) that is lacking.

Shoreguy: Thanks for the suggestion on mix, I do tend to be a bit too liberal with watering, so sphag is not always my friend. I have played around with S/H with decent success. There are a couple plants that I could probably split and compare how they do in different medium.

Would over feeding be a problem? I would say they get fed 1-2 times a month with a mild (1/2 - 2/3 strength MSU) fert solution and have a few grains of nutricote in each pot.

If your watering habits and environmental conditions make it too difficult for you to use sphag, then of course choose a different medium. Many growers use bark or other media to great success.

I personally find neos easy enough to grow in either bark or sphagnum as long as watering habits are adjusted to fit. However, I personally use sphagnum because it allows the roots to grow relatively straight with no kinks, which makes it easy to train them downwards and rearrange them to easily grow each plant into beautiful tight and neat clumps.

If you would like to continue to use sphagnum for whatever reason, aesthetic or otherwise, I have found that potting with the hollow core method plus using an unglazed earthenware clay pot is the best way to go. There's something about the combination of the porous and evaporative clay pot plus the wicking nature of sphagnum that my plants absolutely adore.


As for fertilizer, there might be something about using too much fertilizer at least when it comes to certain tiger varieties. Since tiger variegation is essentially a form of chlorosis, there might be something to be said about avoiding too much fertilizer maybe. I'm not certain myself about that though.

Personally, for fertilizer, I use MagAmp. I bury 5-6 granules in the moss every time I remoss and use no other fertilizer.

An expert Korean grower that I know who runs a large scale nursery with over 100,000 individual Neos has also explicitly told me that it isn't really necessary to fertilize neos all that much. He also said that if you change the sphagnum 3-4 times a year, you pretty much don't need to fertilize at all. A few Japanese growers that I know have stated that they don't fertilize at all, and others follow more or less the same method that I use. All of them say that while it's not completely necessary to grow healthy plants, one of the keys to keeping their neos at tip top shape is replacing the medium frequently, no matter what they use.

Wow Hakumin, what a stunning selection of Neos! Thank you for sharing, I love seeing so many photos in one post. I love your Manjushage hybrids, it's interesting to see that the 3 spur trait is passed on to the offspring but takes the color of the other parent.


What exactly makes a Neo a difficult bloomer? Are they more picky about light? or temperature? I got a Tamakongo as my first bean leaf, and I'm interested in what I may have to do slightly differently to get blooms. (Noting that I'm only had it and my other Neos for no more than 4 months for the oldest)

I am fascinated with the semi-actinomorphic triple spurred neos and I have quite a few actually. The nursery I got the two colored ones from, whose owner is the one who managed to breed them himself, said that breeding colored three spur varieties is extremely time consuming and difficult to do.

He said that to make the hybrids, he chose a good Manjushage parent and a good colored flower parent and crossed them. Out of the offspring, the majority of them end up having white, single spurred flowers. Next in frequency are the colored flower single spurred plants. Next are the white three spurs which make up only 5-10% of the offspring, and finally only 0.1% of them bloom colored three spur flowers. Overall however, apparently only 1 or 2 out of 100,000 total seedlings will produce a nice dark color paired with three spurs and a good flower shape.

Personally, I'm glad that there are people out there to do the difficult work of breeding these plants, and all I have to do is throw my money at them for a piece :biggrin:

What a job to breed those plants then! So the 3 spur trait and color trait are recessive apparently. Based on the frequencies you give of the different types, it sounds like a good example of dihybrid Mendelian laws of inheritance, with probable linkage between the traits (inherited together, so the genes are on the same chromosome), which is why the rate of colored + 3 spurred is so low. If they were inherited independently of one another they could expect around 6% colored + 3 spurred. 0.1% means that the 2 genes are very, very close to each other on the chromosome, making it exceedingly difficult to breed. Hats off to them for having the patience to do that!

But like you say, let the others do the hard work! I suspect that lots of money needs to be thrown their way in order to get one of these plants. Once I have some years of (successful) Neo growing under my belt I’d like to get some unusual looking Neos. I don't even dare get a Manjushage, that's already getting to be expensive enough for something I might kill from inexperience. Until then, I'll admire photos!

Camille,

Hard to say what makes for a difficult bloomer, some are and some are not. Temperature difference might be a bigger issue.

4 months is absolutely nothing. An orchid growing friend of mine once kept a Paph over 10 or 15 years before blooming and it was a plant not kept for foliage. I would have garbaged it.

---------- Post added at 10:54 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:39 AM ----------

Emory

In winter feeding 2 times a month even at reduced rate might be excessive and having nutricote besides might not be beneficial. I would keep it out entirely but don't repot to get rid of it. Just don't use it again except possibility in early Spring to give plants a boost.

Camille,

More on temperature. A few years ago during Super Storm Sandy, my power was out for 11 days resulting in my niightime temperature down to 50. The following Spring,
my neos went absolutely wild with blooming the likes of which I have never seen.

Beginners may not realize that the sphagnum is not kept wet. Frequent repotting keeps the sphagnum very fresh, with substantial air spaces. Old sphagnum compacts and the air spaces are obliterated. This is bad for the roots, which need air at all times, even when wet.

Neos will grow very happily completely bare-root, as do other relatives in the Vanda alliance. I have seen amazingly huge plants growing on a large rock, with an enormous mass of roots winding in all directions.

When in Japan in November, I saw some Neos in front of someone's house growing on rocks, and quite happily it seemed. No risk of rot, despite being exposed to pouring rain....

---------- Post added at 07:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:27 PM ----------

:shock: 10 to 15 years with no blooms??? Wow, that person was patient! I would have ditched it after max 5 years...

The 4 months was just meant to say that I have no hindsight, yet, on whether my culture is good enough to see blooms, since I haven't gone through a blooming season with them yet. Things are as they are this winter, and if they don't bloom or not well, I'll tweak my culture next winter. Temperature diffference is probably the problem point if their is one, there's less than 10f difference between night and day.