How do YOU winter your Neofinetias?
 

There is a lot of information out there on different way to give neos a winter rest, or not give them a rest at all. I want to know how YOU do it, what has or hasn't worked for you? 1..2.3..GO!

I can't add much to this conversation, Quay, but I am interested in every one's response. So my post bumps this thread.

The only thing I do is reduce the hours of lighting and water/fertilize less. The temperature drop happens naturally. I find the more you fuss over them, the less results you will get.

I just hang mine in the brightest window and spray the roots to keep them healthy until they begin to grow again in February. I don't fertilize them at all until growth resumes. My temps are 64'F and we have very dark, dreary winters so....

---------- Post added at 08:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:41 PM ----------

How does this work? Pretty well. :)

I'm growing under lights this winter (everybody has to come in, it's Bahstin!).
Most everything gets less water than the few months I have outside, but with the lights I still find after a week, most of my Neos in sphag pots are crispity crunchy & those in bark/perlite/lava rock also definitely need a drink. I'm able to keep my humidity above 65% & root tips are still good. I'll be cutting back on fert as well. Besides that I'm scouring eBay & Amazon for one of those real life fast forward remotes like Adam Sandler had so I can see if what I'm doing works. No luck on that front yet...
>_<

Happy Growing!
-Brown Thumbs

How important is that low a temperature? Because My room gets pretty warm from the lights and the heat (connected to my gramma's room) so I can't really give hem chilly temps without putting them in the snow

How about on your windowsill? Unless you have a superduper insulated window, it's generally cooler.

I'm not sure that my window sills are large enough to keep the neos on without fear of them falling off.

How warm is warm? Neos aren't as sensitive to being cold like Nobile Dendrobiums are in order to get them to bloom. I'm sure you'll be fine.

Probably in the range of 68-75 degrees. I grew my lone Setsuzan with all the rest of them last winter, just slightly dryer, and it bloomed twice this summer. But that may or may not be a fluke, I have a lot more now and I'd like to grow them the best that I can.

When do you all start your rests?

When I first was interested in getting one, I kept reading that these needed cold to bloom and even live! I decided to try it anyway, despite what I had read.
My first neo blooms faithfully every summer and looks in no danger of dying. From my observation, it seems more affected by the length of daylight. It always rests beginning in Oct, then begins to grow with the rest of my plants in late February.
Likely people water as normal and fertilize during the rest period which wouldn't be too good for them.

I start my rest now since October tends to be warmer here. I still have some plants that are blooming now...

We had a cold summer so I brought the plants and orchids in early which usually starts the process of growth slowing on the plants that are affected by this. My Lou Sneary is ready to bloom but the roots are taking a growing break. This is a great thread, by the way. :)

Glad to hear everyone's different methods! Hopefully future neo-heads can make use of this thread too! Please feel free to keep adding your advice or your methods!

From what I've read I think I'm going to do this-Try and figure out how to safely keep them on the window sill or closer to the window (my bench is right under a window) and I will keep them on the dryer side. No fertilizer.


What are your all's thoughts on starting a rest when they are in the middle of growing new fans? I have a few in that situation.

If you're in the winter season, I would still water less. Neos slow down normally and will pick back up during the growing season. I've had developing spikes go dormant, then continue to fully develop and bloom during the next flowering season.

You could hang them. I know you have those fancy pots so perhaps buying a few basket pots to hold the fancy pot and then attaching a wire plant hanger to it might work. The net pot and wire hanger will add stability so that the plant doesn't fall. Just an idea.

Will do!

That's a good idea, but i don't really have a good place to hang them rm, unfortunately.

My neos get very cool temperatures during the winter; while days get up to the mid 70s, nights regularly drop to between, say, 40 and 52 F. The plants stay relatively dry and get whatever sunlight nature provides (in other words, no supplemental lighting), and they stay dormant until spring. That being said, this species is adaptable. During one winter when our house was being built, the plants had to make do in an apartment, where the nights never dropped below 64 F. I still cut down on the watering drastically, and they came through just fine the following spring. So I think you're probably okay with the warmer temperatures, Bob. Good luck!

Steve

Just an update, I was able to squeeze guys on to the window sill! So they are enjoying a nice winter rest. How long do you guys wait between watering in the winter?

When the moss is crunchy, then I water. :)

Even in the winter? That's what I do in peak growing season, I thought winter should be dryer

They should, but you still need to water them. Just water less.

Exactly. But if watering when the moss gets crunchy is the process in summer, shouldn't it be longer between watering?

I'm running late on my winter rest, but hope to have them all situated by the end of this month. Currently I actually have most of my Neos siting on a warming pad under lights and normal watering, with occasional very weak fert and cal-mag.

The only thing holding me back is physically setting up a narrow table or shelf to extend a fairly narrow window sill. All but a few I should be able to fit into 2 Ikea Socker micro greenhouses to maintain humidity. Then I'll just hook up a very small computer fan inside each one.

During the summer, I soak the plants through and water about twice a week. During the wintertime, I do not soak through and only water every week to a week and a half. I also fertilize less, or just make it very weak.

Lights are on about 9-10 hours and it gets cold in my house on its own. I really don't do anything special. With this routine, I am getting a ton of new growth (fans and roots) despite the winter "rest."

Sounds like a plan. When you say you water but not all the way thought, what do you mean by that?

For those who keep their neos warmer (say above 65 min during winter), please specify how long you have been growing them this way and how well the plants are doing all this time.
I think that would help out a lot.

I have my first neo mounted on a cork with a little bit of moss. It has more than ten growths. I keep it by the sunny window. It gets very warm on sunny days and at night, it does get cooler but not lower than 65.
The whole thing, leaves and roots, are in active growth and I believe it is mainly because it is kept warm. so I water everyday since it is actively growing.

Now, I understand wild neos grow in the southern islands of South Korea and Japan, where winter gets very cold and snows quite a bit. The ocean breeze provides fairly high humidity.
then they get rained on like crazy during the summer monsoon.

I read that warm winter will deteriorate neos over the years.
hence, I would like to know how long you guys have all been growing under "warm" winter conditions.

Thanks in advance!

Most of my Neo's are in the bathroom with the window cracked. It on occasion gets into the upper 50's but are mostly in the 60's. I have them in LECA, CHC, Sphag, lava rocks, a couple have orchiata mixed in. The sphag'ed ones go the longest without. The couple with growing roots get the most water. All leaf growth have stopped.

I water less because it takes longer for the media to dry. They get a dunking when I've gone too long without any watering.

Don't know anything specifically about mounted Neos.

Quay you need to just take those neos and stick them in a snow drift in Pennsylvania ;)

I don't want to divert the conversation BUT one of the reasons I got more neos this year is because I had such great success with my first and only other neos and those neos actually don't grow in moss at all but in sh. This is contrary culture of letting them "dry out" but in sync with letting the plants "cool down." I don't know what to say than to say sh simply works with these plants but they arent the easiest to establish in sh because they can be so tiny when you first get them. Many of the varieties are only affordable one fan at a time... which is silly.

What I can tell you though is that, at least for me, letting mine dry out entirely is bad because we get so so dry here (again, I'm at 6780' mean sea level and can see humidity from a comfortable 4-100% RH, usually closer to 4 most of the time LOL!) I cannot let my plants dry out entirely because I lose the roots right to desiccation. SH keeps them moist but through evaporative cooling these plants gain their ques on seasonal chnages and thus predictable and repeatable blooming.

Just my take... I know you don't like sh much BUT there are other options like mounting on a Kool Log (which I just bought some so I'm going to give them a try).

I'll just throw them outside, I'm sure they'll be fine ;)

In all seriousness, I really like the moss and have good luck with it. Last winter I just grew warm and they were fine, but if the traditional logic and tried and true methods call for a rest, I definitely want to at least try that.

I've grown both with a cool, dry winter rest and keeping warm and moist like it was their regular growing season and I haven't really noticed much difference either way. They go into my unheated garage, onto house windowsills, and under HO T5's on shelves in my basement depending on the space available when I bring them in.

From what I remember when I first got into Neos was they grow from the Ryukyu Islands into southern China and Korea and most of Japan which I learned is a fairly broad climatic distribution. While I was doing my research, I also went onto Weather.com and checked the monthly averages for temperature and rainfall for cities or towns within this range (Okinawa, Miyazaki, Wakayama, etc.) Winter average lows ranged between 35'F and 60'F and summer average highs ranged between 75'F and 85'F and average precipitation ranged between 2 inches per month and 7 inches per month depending on location; drier in the colder regions and wetter in the warmer.

Bottom line; from the climate data from their native range and my own experience, as long as they stay above freezing, and stay below 90, they'll be fine with whatever temperature you give them. I personally keep mine on the dry side during the winter because when I first started, I lost a couple due to root and crown rot when they were cold and wet too long. They all get watered on pretty much the same schedule during the winter, about every 10-14 days whether they are in S/H, moss mounds, bark in pots or mounted on cork or Ecoweb/Epiweb (new accidental experiment this year). I will water the mounts more frequently if I see the leaves are starting to fold a little.

Cheers.
Jim

Great info this helps me so much just the fact that you have using both methods & no damage to the Neos. Thanks for this post ;)

For those of you who have Sedireas, I am finding I have to water these a bit more than the Neos during the winter. I started getting shrively lower leaves and as soon as began to water them more, they all bounced back.

I have my sedirea only since a few months, but this is something I also noticed. I watered them together with my neo's and immediatly the sedirea showed wrinkles untill I watered it more frequently... BUT I still only water it once a week and my neo's once every 1.5 or 2 weeks now in wintertime... and this seems to be plenty.

greetz,
Dries

Since Sedirea is now officially Phalaenopsis, I just treat mine like my Phals, mist the air roots at least daily and don't let the sphag get completely crunchy. So far, so good.

Then again there's a lot of variance in cultural requirements between different Phal species.

That is the same conclusion I arrived at when I noticed my Sederia japonica responding very well to more frequent watering. I had them growing in the same environment as Neofinetia and they did not seem as robust. I moved them to the shadier side of my growing area with my other Phalaenopsis, it is also warmer, and I am feeding them like my other Phals. It has been a month now and they all seem to be better--roots growing, leaf development increased, and the plants seem to be shinier.

I'm experimenting with my small tribe of Dendrobium moniliforme by moving them into the same location as my other Dendrobium--brighter light, warmer temperatures and weakly weekly feeding.

Now that I've gotten over worrying about my Neofinetia winter rest regime--they too seem to be thriving.

I moved a minmaru in to sh media today. Not sh culture, just the media.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think we are slowing figuring out the culture for those beauties. Mine (fingers crossed) seems to be happy throwing out a new leaf & roots. It is in moss & getting lots of water & light. So far so good but you never know they can turn on you quickly.:)

I did the same with my standard after my last shima died. Since all my Phals were switched over to dry LECA a while ago and they have roots galore and various growths going on (but spikes are sloooooooowwww to stalled), it made some sense for the Sedirea.

Are neos found throughout Japan because it is a bigger country than many people think stretching from as low as subtropical (Okinawa) all the way up to eastern Russia.

And in Korea, only the southern most island have neos growing wild. and in this area, winter does get freezing cold (not as severe as north eastern america) and it snows quite a bit.