Hello - Phalaenopsis Propagation and Transpanting Questions

[AnonYMouse]

Ask yourself why you want the Vanilla. Because the Leptotes is a very different plant.

One is ~3 inches tall, the other can be several meters long. One blooms for a few hours (or is that just prime pollination time?), the other for several days (I don't remember how long mine bloomed).

Don't grow either for the vanillin compound without researching the process (pollination to post harvest), it's not like picking green beans.

Even after thinking, researching, purchasing and blooming a plant, you still might find it a disappointment.

[gitano]

The raison d'etre for considering the Vanilla sp. was because I prefer to grow things that give back to me. Vegetables are "ok" but with a few exceptions, more work than I care for. I prefer fruiting perennials, shrubs, and trees. I think I have been talked in to buying my vanilla beans.

I have looked the plants in the grocery store over fairly carefully, and I found all of them healthy-looking, at least to the orchid-ignorant eye. The one I picked up had laterally compressed, "bulbous" growths above ground but at the base of the leaves. The petals of the blossoms were "pointy". I'll look it up, but I suspect that most of you will recognize it (the family) from that description.

If I buy it, I'll post pictures.

Thanks!
Paul