This is how the sweet orchid can be grown

This is how you wrest a rich bloom from a vanilla orchid

The better it is possible to generate the tropical warm and humid conditions at the location, the sooner the vanilla orchid can be motivated to flower. Cultivated as normal Houseplant, you will hardly grow vanilla yourself. It is better to offer the plant a place in the year-round warm, light-flooded greenhouse with 25-28 degrees Celsius and a humidity of 70-80 percent. This care sets the course for a rich harvest:

• Water the plant moderately with lime-free water, whereby the substrate dries up in the meantime
• Spray every 2-3 days with soft, filtered rainwater
• From March to September every 2 weeks fertilize with a low-salt orchid fertilizer

Tie the tendrils up regularly according to their growth rate. Each cut increases the waiting time for a first bloom.

Manual Pollination Guide - How to Replace Bees and Hummingbirds

Gardeners who want to grow vanilla themselves should be on their guard during the flowering period. Within a flower cluster, a bud opens every day in the morning hours. If it is not pollinated now, it will die by evening and the hope for a vanilla pod is gone. This is how manual fertilization works:

• Using a pointed stick like a toothpick, carefully slice open the flower on one side
• The male and female sexual components are separated in the hermaphrodite flower by a membrane
• Pick up the yellowish pollen and transfer it to the pistil below

After pollination, it takes between 6 and 9 months until the former flower turns into a long, green vanilla pod.