Vanilla!

[Mira-Claude]

For once I am doing my homework before the exam.
I want to acquire a Vanilla plant, yet I do not know much about these and have a hard time finding factual information from someone growing it in their home.
Can someone help me out?

[PhalNewbie89]

From what I remember, they are vine-like, and need to be fairly large before ever flowering, and the flowers only last for a day.

[Dendian]

I tried the Vanilla - mine is slowly dying. I think it needs more humidity than I can give it in a home environment. Its a vine - and it grows roots off the vine - so they are always aerial roots. The bottom rotted off (it was in moss - then I tried bark with the next section) and its not getting enough moisture to live. I know its a cool plant, but I don't think it works at home - except maybe in a humid house?

[Brooke]

I grow it in a g/h and it takes full sun for most of the day until the sun slips to the west. I grow it right next to my Vanda tricolor (suavis). It is a vine and needs something to climb on. The plant gets its water and nutrients from aerial roots where the leaves attach to the stem and may have aerial roots on the stem too. I will check when I return to the g/h.

When I got a piece of it from a friend, I used a big bulb pan with p'nuts heaped in the bottom with a shallow coir/perlite mix. I put a wrought iron pergola for the plant to climb on. As the vine grows longer I weave it in and out of the wrought iron to keep the vine as compact as possible because I don't want it attaching to the sides or roof of the g/h so I can always monitor it for bugs.

Like Nancy, I think it must attain significant growth before it is old enough to flower.

I've never heard of someone being able to grow this inside anything but a g/h, a sun room or outside.

Brooke

[bearded orchid]

Exactly what Brooke said. Carter & Holmes has a very good culture sheet on Vanillas.

Vanilla Orchid Care - Carter and Holmes Orchids Culture

[Mira-Claude]

Thank you everyone!
Seeing has I have a sun room facing east I think I'll take a chance! The problem will be space but I'll have it fold on itself. Or I'll try. At worse I'll do like Carter and Holmes says and cut parts of it off...
But wow! It really is an awesome plant!

[Puddy1]

Good Luck

[Leafmite]

I grow inside the house during the cold months, outside in summer. I love the jungle look vines provide so vanilla was an obvious addition to the passion fruit, piper, and jasmines. My mix for the orchid is half small lava rock with the other half a mixture of miracle grow orchid mix, sand, perlite, vermiculite, and regular pine bark. It stays moist but gives air to the roots. I used sturdy PVC pipe (plumbing store) to make a T-frame on which it can grow. The pot is clay. In the florist section of a big box store, I found moss and floral wire and attached the moss to the pipe for the roots that grow along the vine. Vanilla is often grown commercially with pepper, piper nigrum, so reading up on its culture can help with the vanilla though the piper is more tolerant. I don't think it likely I will get vanilla beans but it is a nice houseplant and easier than many others (except trying to get that frame in and out the door). I have read that they are grown hydroponically in China for the vanilla industry, with bottom heat. Good luck, have fun!
Leafmite

[Anton]

Just think of "Little Shop of Horrors", if you are not careful, it will overtake everything the way it grows.

Even with my set up which is ideal for them, I am not even going to attempt to grow Vanilla, as much as I love the flavor.

If you want to harvest the Vanilla pods, well, that's another story.

You have to MANUALLY pollinate the flowers, and as mentioned, there is a very limited window of opportunity to do it due to the short lasting flowers. Then once they are formed, there is a procedure you have to go through to ready them for use which from memory involves putting them in hot water.

I looked up growing and harvesting Vanilla a couple of years ago and decided to put it in the "Too Hard Basket".

Commercially it is a very labor intensive process, hence the cost in buying Vanilla pods.

They have an army of workers who have small sticks like toothpicks and they manually pollinate as many flowers as they can in a short time to harvest the greatest amount of pods as possible.

I can think of better things to do with my time, such as enjoying the plants I have that aren't high maintenance.

[jpyerry]

I've had a very small vanilla vine cutting (maybe 5 inches long, that produce leaves about 1/3 inch long) since about March of this year. I grow most of my orchids in a grow tent that maintains about 75% humidity and a temperature of around 75F, it has a 4' 4 bulb T5HO fixture at the top. Anyways, I saw absolutely no signs of growth from this plant until a month ago. I had also been trying to find a good spot (lightwise) in the tent for it to grow. I saw a small amount of growth when it was placed about 6" from the light. So since it seemed to require a lot of light, I moved it to my tomato growing room that has a 1000W HPS light and placed it about 2 feet away from the light. It has since put on two new leaves. I am not 100% certain that it is due to the increased light, change in spectrum, or if it is due to the greater temperature fluctuation in that room (due to the heat of the lamp, it gets to be around 83F and drops to 73F when the light is off). Anyways, blathering aside, I have found this plant somewhat challenging to grow inside. This is a plant that I really can't wait to get into a greenhouse someday, a man can dream...

[Leafmite]

I think it likes light, too. I grow mine at the edge of a south-facing window in winter and it gets direct morning sun outside.
Leafmite

[R&P]

I feel much better reading through this thread, as I had purchased a Vanilla plant at Hausermann's in February, and it did not do well. The remnants of the vine still appear green, but there are no leaves left and I'm just letting nature takes its course. I know now not to even try again until I will the lottery and can get a greenhouse!

[chrisb19]

I have some growing on the wall in the front of my house. It reminds me of Jack and the beanstalk. It takes about 4 years to flower and then only for a night. If you are lucky enough to get a bean it needs to season for six months on the vine. But, nonetheless, they are nice to have.

[jerrymeola]

Vanilla needs to be 5-6 feet long to flower. They grow well in a hanging basket and it is a way to get it big enough without too much trouble.

A friend has one about 5 feet high (he keeps propagating by cutting it). It is about 3 feet in diameter and has flowers most of the time. It is growing in a Vanda house. It needs constant watering like Vanda.

I have both the regular and the newer variegated leaf variety. I like the varigated better.

[cable]

I used to have a vanilla plant, but it died I won't try these again unless circumstances let me have a greenhouse. I really think that's important to succeeding with these, because they need a lot of space and humidity.

[jpyerry]

Since this thread started, I decided to pay a little more attention to vanilla orchid. A week or so ago, I wanted to check on its roots. When I pulled the stake out, the whole plant came with it; apparently the plant rotted completely below the soil line. But, it is still actively growing. So I have decided to mount the plant and see what results I get. I placed it on a tree fern totem and hung it up in my grow tent (even though it has been responding quite well to my 1000W HPS light, it has become to expensive to keep that thing running, so it is back under my T5HO light, I might add in some 3500K bulbs in case it was responding to the change in spectrum). Anyways, I will let everyone know how it responds to the new mount. Incidentally, it is my first attempt with mounting an orchid.

Justin

[Medelia]

Good Luck!

[otis 226]

I thought I might want to try growing vanilla a while back... until I saw a 40 ft. vine of it growing up a tree in S. FL! Too many orchids to try that I have at least a small chance of growing successfully. But if you like big challanges, Enjoy.
Cheers,
Tony

[Leafmite]

I think that what makes vanilla difficult for some is that there really isn't clear information on how to grow it in the house, in colder climates. You can search and search and the information found is really not very helpful. I was lucky to come across an article that said that often the peppercorn and vanilla vines are often grown together and I grow the piper vine so that was a big hint (I found quite a bit of information on Piper vines). Vanilla does like to be near a sunny South facing window in the winter and get some direct light. It tolerates cooler winter temperatures (high sixties) but doesn't like drafts. It's aerial roots need something to bury themselves into if your house is heated and lower in humidity than a rain forest so that they won't dry out as they help to sustain the vine. In those same conditions, you need a soil that retains moisture but is opened up a bit so the roots won't rot as this plant's roots are adapted for growing in a thin layer of leaf litter on the tropical forest floor. In a large box, I mixed miracle grow orchid mix, better grow orchid bark, perlite, vermiculite, sand and lava rock. I wrapped the part of the pole where the orchid reaches with a thick layer of absorbent paper towels, covered them with floral moss, used florist wire to fasten it, then held the pole in the pot and began by putting large pot shards around the pole to help stabilize it. I then began filling with my mixture, adding the vanilla and roots somewhere near the top with the bottom of the stem just under the surface when the rest of the mix was added. I then attached the vine to the moss with floral pins, these u-shaped pieces of metal, so that the vine would stay in place and attached itself to the moss with roots. When I water, I use dehumidifier water or water from my goldfish container pond (this is filled with rain and dehumidifier water), sometimes with fertilizer added, and I pour this on the pole until the moss is damp. The soil gets watered in this way, too. The soil is very grainy and lumpy so it doesn't feel wet, just damp, like sand that had water poured through and has drained. As the vine grows larger, I cover the next section of the PVC pole with paper towels and floral moss (floral moss dries out very quickly without the paper towels beneath them). I have more pipe and connectors waiting for the future and a short-term supply of floral moss. For the summer, vanilla is outside and gets direct morning sun and bright sun for the rest of the day. My vanilla has been growing about an inch a week in the nice summer weather. it grows more slowly inside the home with lower temps. So, in conclusion, it is possible to grow these vines in colder climates but there just hasn't been much information to help those wanting to do so. I think it makes a lovely houseplant, like many of the other vines commonly sold that also grow on moss poles so I don't mind if I don't get flowers or beans. Since there is so little information, I hope that others growing this plant in colder climates, without a greenhouse, will share whatever information they can to help. This is just my method. I hope others might find it helpful.
Leafmite

[1joyceh]

My vanilla is about 3 yrs old. I have kind of wrapping itself around 4 ft stakes, in a 10 in pot mix of promix, extra perlite, and worm casting. If I were to stretch it out, it would be easily 10 ft. The vine is as thick as a pencil, and the leaves are about 1/4 in thick. It alternates between the grow room and a west facing window, when I need space in the tent for the bloomers. It loves wet, I have the pot in a deep saucer, and have water in it all the time. I feed it with the others, and occasionally will mix up worm tea and do a foliar feed, which it likes. Don't know if I will ever get a flower...sigh...but she is healthy!

[Mira-Claude]

The more I research and ask question the easier I find information and people growing it in house. With care and patience I am sure I will manage!
I love the way you grow it leafmite! Might take a page of your book!
Either way, the plant had been ordered and I shall receive it by the end of next week!
I'll send picture!

[jpyerry]

I think it is interesting that several people have mentioned that their vanilla grows well in the same conditions as Piper nigrum. I will be honest, so far my vanilla has given me more trouble than any other orchid in my collection, except for my Calopogons and Habenarias. I also grow Piper nigrum, I got it as a small rooted cutting (my attempts with seeds were a dismal failure) and when I first got it it sulked for a month or two, I thought it was going to die. Then, one day, it perked up and has grown like a weed ever since. Originally, it was about four inches long, and since March it grown to be over two feet tall and is continuously putting out new leads. It was actually getting so unruly that I now have it in a tomato cage. I am hoping that after tweaking things until they are just right, my vanilla will take off like my peppercorn plant.

[1joyceh]

I have to keep the piper nigrum in a more shady area, it does not seem to like as much light as the vanilla. I have put it with the vanilla a few times, leaves fall off, I am stuck with 8 ft of green vine, not a pretty sight

[jpyerry]

Alright, well since I shut down the HPS light, I decided to put the vanilla plant outdoors. I hung it from the fence behind one of my pepper plants so it has some shading. Hopefully before the fall comes I can get a smaller HPS light (I'm thinking in the range of 250W), since it and my Zygopetalums responded so well to it. The plant just does not do well under the T5HO lights. Anyway, I will post by the end of the week on how it is responding.

[chrisb19]

This is a vanilla that we have growing by the front entrance on a four meter wall. The plants nearby are papyrus.
The vanilla is only about 2 years old and it fell down about six months ago and lost about a meter. The top split and now both branches are growing. The new growth is much stronger and the leaves are bigger. I guess I will have to ask my neighbor in a few months how he feels about vanilla.
In Fantasia, Mickey Mouse was the Sorcerer's Apprentice and got brooms to work for him but they kept splitting until there were tens of thousands. That's vanilla.

[Mira-Claude]

Just received my vanilla! An adorable 3 feet high plant!
I repotted her and found her a nice spot near my vandas!
Hope she'll be happy!
I have no time to post pictures as I have to go to work but I'll show you guys pictures tomorrow!
Thanks for the advice!

[Mira-Claude]

So here is my little vanilla!
Once replanted and beside my vanda she looks awesome!
And the best, she picked up her growing right where she left off!

[1joyceh]

She does look awesome Mira!!
I was looking closely at my vanilla yesterday, and GASP!!! I may be getting a flower?
I will have to take pics today and post, so that I can get a second opinion...holding my breath :-))

[1joyceh]

I need a second opinion, please. Does this look like the beginnings of a bud?

That is very exciting Joyce ! I watched a video on how to pollinate a vanilla flower...its a technique that is learned and a skill...it will only bloom for a day. so take pictures in the morning before it wilts and dies in the afternoon

[1joyceh]

If she does flower Anky, there will be lots of pics...and....I have my paint brush ready!! I have watched the video a dozen times already...and will again, I want a bean

[Orchidementia]

I'm growing mine inside. Mine is from Mexico and prefers lower light than plants from other regions (mine is a variegated type) and hates hates hates hot temps.

[1joyceh]

This one has always been inside, generally under T5HO, mix of 6500K and 2600K bulbs.
A few weeks here and there got sent to the window, to make room for bloomers in the tent.

[Mira-Claude]

You guys are giving me hope!
I love you!

[Rivka]

i just got a tiny 8" long Vanilla. planifolia 'Marginata' to play with. its a tiny cute rooted cutting from the looks of things. i go all my 'chids in s/h so im going to play around with rooting it in that.

what do folks think of my thinking that i could root some of the newest roots along its length without even touching what is already potted? im figuring it would be great way to have the move to s/h be sure smooth.

my other though since this will be a windowsill plant is to grow it in a loop and bring the vine every foot or so bak to the s/h pot and peg it down to have it root again in the pot, that way roots all along its length will have direct access to moisture.

any thoughts on my idea?

[Mira-Claude]

I don't have any idea about your thoughts... Being new to this takes me to a trial/error stage where I don't want to mess up.
I found that the bottom sphag stayed too wet, while the stick dried too fast.... So as soon as I can put my hands on hydroton, in it goes with sphag on top. Maybe she'll be better off that way! I also found out quite recently that vanilla had an peculiar hate of temperature under 70... Good to know but a bit too late... she tasted temperature around 60. I figure this is going to be my greatest challenge with her! Fighting the cold!
Her leaves drooped a little and went a bit wrinkly on me.
But I must be doing something right because she made a few new roots! Yippy!

[krpot]

I just got a cutting of a vanilla orchid from a conservatory in indy. It's a very short cutting but has 2 huge leaves (maybe 3in by 5 in) and one arial root. It's in a west window for now and hasn't shown signs of sadness. seems to be in some kind of terrestrial mix. Glad I found this thread and thanks for all the info geeks!

[Epipactis12]

I have grown vanilla in my kitchen for at least 8 or 9 years. It gets watered once in a while and faces north. I don't care about it flowering since I just like its look and it is a north-facing window. It started out a few inches long and now encircles the small window. It is warm in the kitchen but not hot and at night the low is 60. Trouble free. Here's a pic!