Kristi, It is not easy to get a bloom for indoor growers. The vine has to achieve mamoth proportions and needs to have some form of support. Once it gets to blooming size it oftem will grow downwards and bloom. Each bloom will last one day and you have to pollinate by hand at a specific time that the orchid flower will recieve the pollin. If your succesfull, a bean will begin to grow which can take 8-9, months to mature. I got all this info from a demonstartion at the Botanical gardens in Buffalo. This was directed to indoor growers so it may varyfor outdoor growers. Even after you get a pod, you still have to cure the bean to get usable vanilla. Has anyone here been able to grow there own beans and if yes, dod you have any pictures? Mine is still small but about 4 ft tall now. What Harry says about neglect is true. I do that with mine and I can see how this vine could take over. I guess I still hope that someday it will bloom. I don't have much hope that I will get a bean but who knows! Andrew

hi i have a few vanilla orchid cuttings. Do you have any other orchids to swap?

The stems are brittle, so be careful to not bend them too tightly. Although, if they do break you'll have another plant. Some of mine are up over 20 metres in trees and it took a while before I found out they were flowering up there. Later I planted some on a much smaller tree stump (about 3 metres tall) . They sprawled around the top a bit and flowered at that height. Some I've got on a 1.5 metre stump haven't flowered at all. Whatever height they need, they also need to sprawl and hang down a bit. If they've still got room to go up they'll keep climbing and not flower. I did see a comment on a forum once (and only once) of there being dwarf varieties, but I don't know how accurate it was. Or maybe they were thinking of a different species of vanilla.

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