Question: Vanilla Planiflora stem or spike?

[CTB]

Thanks 21jd

is there a place in Hawaii that I might order one?

[Junebug]

Originally Posted by CTB

Thanks 21jd

is there a place in Hawaii that I might order one?

Cuttings are reasonably priced and sold at most orchid shows. A healthy cutting will have roots at each node along the stem. They grow well in African Violet mix. Their vines respond well to daily mistings and keep the medium a little moist but not soggy.

[2ljd]

Originally Posted by CTB

Thanks 21jd

is there a place in Hawaii that I might order one?

There's several vendors on ebay that sell established cuttings...Kawamoto Orchids located on Oahu does sell some, but I'm not sure if there are any up for auction at this time. Send them an email; I'm sure they would be able to send you what you need. Good luck!

[nhman]

When you get your plant well established, the next issue will be the manual fertilization of the flowers - remembering that they only last one day and need to be hand pollenated early in the bloom's life for best results. You can look this up on line and get the step by step instructions. You might want to do this in advance, just so you are ready when you get blooms, whenever that may be!
I've had mine now for 3 years, it's about 15 feet long and growing on a natural rope along one wall of the growing area. No blooms.....yet........but I'm waiting! Good luck.

[CTB]

three years, no blooms, no pods, hand pollenated.

Where's the wild thing part?

[nhman]

In the great and wild outdoors from whence Vanilla comes from (and this does not even come close to the geoclimatic reality up here in New Hampshire), pollination is done by insects. None of those little guys can survive live up here.
Thus, we must literally take things into our own hands if we wish to get pods from the Vanilla blooms.
The vine DOES look really cool tho! )

[CTB]

ok, I'll look for one, Florida has weather more like Hawaii. Thanks for the info, We have lots of bees around our Citrus trees. Maybe they'll like the vanilla orchid too.

[RosieC]

Carol,

One of the things about orchids is that the specialise in their polinator. That means that each orchid attacts a different polinator and most only have one or maybe two polinators. Other insects just won't cut the bill for the wrong orchid.

[CTB]

I finally got my vanilla vine, its 12 inches tall and looks very healthy, we'll see if I can keep it alive till it blooms, guess I have a few years wait.

[cb977]

Great 2ljd!

I'm not sure about planifolia but I have Vanilla grandiflora that started from an 18" cutting. I was told it needed to grow 15 ft AND take at least one "turn" with it growing downwards for it to bloom. It did take the turn but it did not need the 15 ft Mine is in the s/w corner of my orchid room growing out of a pot of African Violet mix and trained up a tree fern pole which is attached to a 6 ft stake...and I've clocked the blooms at about 14 hrs in duration. They started blooming within 2 yrs of planting...first just one or two clusters but this year it's continually surprising me



I love the way the new growths look when they're coming out, so fresh and lovely...and keep on the lookout for bud clusters...not necessarily from the new growth