Just Ask Mr. Knowitall

Brown, aromatic pods. Look like beans. Seems they ain’t beans, though. According to my friend, P.D., they are orchids:

“Ok so its an orchid. Yea, who knew. I didn’t. Anyway its the only orchid that grows as a vine. It flowers and then the flower dies and produces the pod. Its also the only orchid to produce “fruit” in the form of the pod. You can grow them from a cutting of the vanilla orchid. Darn if I could find a US vendor to buy one from. I’m going to keep looking. 

Now orchids are tricky things. I have one that I have had great success with. A regular flowering one. The trick is to think rain forest. So yes it wants light but, indirect light. And yes it wants water but, not to be sitting it water. It has air roots so they will rot. Yes it wants lots of humidity. A tray under the pot with water in it solves this. So the bathroom with indirect light from the window is perfect. Which in my bathroom I have a sky light so it works really well. Here’s the problem the vanilla orchid will get vines up to 25 feet long. A lot of plant in a bathroom. I’m thinking you could do something outside but, it might get too cold for the plant in the winter. Maybe you could just tie the vines around and around the bathroom. The flower is really pretty. And then all that wonderful vanilla! Once a year. That’s how often they bloom.

Oh and the flowers have to be manually pollinated. That’s why the darn things are so expensive because its labor intensive.”

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Thanks, P.D.!
I had totally forgotten about the vanilla bean mystery. Thanks for resolving it. Maybe you can bonsai the plant by trimming it’s roots or something?…

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