First Time Vanilla Blooms

[Bud]

WOW! This is amazing ! You are the first person I know who managed to bloom this plant...I have a couple of friends who managed to keep on killing their plant...year after year and yet they never quit

[SydneyH]

That's a nice healthy looking plant! Many years ago I had a vanilla in my office window where I was working at the time. I always wondered what the blooms would look like.

[Junebug]

Originally Posted by Bud

WOW! This is amazing ! You are the first person I know who managed to bloom this plant...I have a couple of friends who managed to keep on killing their plant...year after year and yet they never quit

Originally Posted by SydneyH

That's a nice healthy looking plant! Many years ago I had a vanilla in my office window where I was working at the time. I always wondered what the blooms would look like.

Thanks, guys. I think my luck has more to do with climate and air circulation than anything else. I still don't have the lighting just right because the bud clusters formed only on the shadiest sides of the plant. If it was grown under a canopy of trees it would do much better. Humidity and temperature are important factors too. In spite of her size she's been kept potted so she can be brought indoors when the temperatures drop below 45. Her pot is weighted with river rock for wind stability making her quite heavy. This winter I had to use a dolly to transport her. Next winter she might be too large to move. Her potting medium is African Violate mix.

[vmijct]

I also found the shade light requirement to be true for this particular species(planifolia and pompona). I moved mine to the west side of my green house and they took off and bloomed. Too much sun on the east side. I read that there were vanillas that liked high light but haven't seen this yet. You guys know anything about that?

[ASP]

Most of the literature I can find on Vanillas in the wild all seem to indicate that they like to grow in indirect bright light but under shade. My V. planifolia variegata grows in the North side of my house about a foot from a large window - I thought I was being mean and that it might like some morning sun so I moved it slightly just so that it would get some weak sun for about half an hour early in the morning. Needless to say it developed a deep bronze burn on a couple of it leaves so I very promptly moved it back.

[vmijct]

Beautiful. I have a vanilla pompona that's bloomed but not a planifolia. Still working on that. I had a pompona bloom that was only 6ft long. not sure what the secret was. It was getting more light than the very large mother plant. I had others burn though.

[lepetitmartien]

Planifolia is supposed to be big enough at 3-4 years or 3-5 meters. But the light is the main issues, I have one for nearly 30 years, after all its adventures is about 5 meters now (thriving since last repotting). But it never flowered as I did not know the light trick.

It needs half-shade under the tropics, can do with a short period with a bit more light there. But in Europe, north of the US, it'll need direct sun to flower.

Got mine for 2 week on a west window, with sun directly from 3-4 in the afternoon, that's the best I can do, we'll see.

Congrats junebug, next step: transforming the beads.

[Junebug]

Thanks to everyone for all the nice comments. My vanilla's bloom cycle ended about 3 weeks ago. Then she began branching. Last year there were only 2 branches and this year there are 7. The new growths are growing at the rate of about 10 inches a week.

[lepetitmartien]

Same here… And some say orchids are slow, NOT Vanillas