g'day jim,

it grows easily over here in the sub-tropics on the east coast of
northern australia. but growing the orchid and enjoying the aroma of
the vanilla pods in your kitchen is a long way in between.

the plant itself is nothing spectacular, the flowers are nothing
spectacular and have no discernable aroma, generaly being a greenish
colour that almost matches the vine.

you will need to learn how to hand pollinate the blooms, this includes
doing it in the correct time frame on the day, so far and i'm only
talking of me i haven't successfully hand pollinated. but then i'm
only doing hit and miss affair.

if you do get successfull pollination then there is still a long way
to go to get that vanilla you speak of, the bean takes about 12 months
to mature then there is a somewhat drawn out process to turn it into
useable end product.

i like the pant because it is unusual and not that easily come by over
here.

so go buy some and have fun, if you can try to learn what you can
about hand pollinating.

len

snipped
--
happy gardening
'it works for me it could work for you,'

"in the end ya' gotta do what ya' gotta do" but consider others and the environment
http://hub.dataline.net.au/~gardnlen/