Tip of the Week – How to Grow Vanilla Orchid

Vanilla Orchids Bean – Vanilla planifolia

Plant Care

When your Vanilla Orchid arrives:
1. Be careful removing the wrapping so you do not pull the roots out of the mix.
2. Do not water it to saturation.
3. Do not repot it.
4. The plant is an epiphyte & will establish itself without the pot in time…gripping onto its host and getting all its nutrients from there as well as its leaf absorption.

 

Care Notes:

1. Think of it as an orchid with aerial roots….so do not plant it in the garden until you know what you are doing.
2. This plant needs great drainage, warm conditions north of Coffs Harbour NSW or Geraldton WA or protected coastal conditions elsewhere. And filtered light or morning sun.
3. Potting mix should be a mix of coarse 10-12mm orchid bark and regular well drained potting mix. But the pot and mix are only a temporary support mechanism.
4. Keep tight rooted. You could grow this plant to 5-6 metres tall in the 75mm pot it arrived in..
5. Its white roots are quite thick….all plants with these type of roots and all orchids do not like being overpotted or overwet.
6. What you get away with in the tropics is not what you can do in cooler areas. In our area you start getting growth at about 28oC.
7. Soon the plant will be getting its nutrients from what its aerial roots are gripping onto. Use a little slow release fertiliser with trace elements like osmocote for the pot. Spray your balanced N:P:K liquid fertilisers and your fish/kelp fertilisers all along the plant as it grows.. Spray worm vermicaste solution if you are fair dinkum for great plants and to help your plant thru winter. . See our vermicaste application video.
Planting Outside
6. If you are in a warm climate you might be able to half bury the plant still in its pot against something that it can climb up like a palm tree or wooden trellis * in part shade or early morning sun. its aerial roots will dig in. Bury it in something like coarse pine bark or well drained compost. You need a well drained dryish spot and not somewhere that is cold & wet in winter.
* They will climb up anything and soon the plant will be getting nutrients from whatever it is putting its aerial roots into. If PVC you need to supply the nutrients.

 

Getting Beans

The pods are 10-20cm long. You should encourage lateral branching and tip pruning will encourage flowering which can start from spring…trail the vine back downwards and across as this will encourage more flowering…..you can get hundreds on a big healthy vine. At this time use a high Potassium (K) fertiliser.

Its possible to get Vanilla Beans from the third year when its about 2m long but you will need to hand pollinate the flowers which involves using a small splinter of wood or a grass stem to carefully lift the rostellum (i.e. flap) out of the way and press the overhanging anther against the stigma. You need to do this soon after the flower opens and remember the flower can open in the morning and close in the evenining….never to open again so you need to be observant & quick each day.

Commercial growers may not pollinate every flower in or to get better quality. Pollination becomes more prolific and easier with age. Unpollinated flowers will fall off in a day.

 

Start Shopping Button cart