C. Nick Kruzer wrote:
Hi Joanna. you wrote:


Growing orchids has the unfortunate reputation
of being complex, but as most of us here have
found, orchids are much easier to grow than
people who don't know about them think. In my
opinion, orchids are in many ways easier to
grow than other houseplants. In fact I havekilled
most other houseplants I have ever owned
, but I find orchids much more difficult to kill --


I made an error in word usage. When I wrote "growing" I actually meant
"propagating". But I'm glad you responded, I might try an orchid or two.
I live in a city as an apartment dweller, so I will have to grow
indoors. I've always wanted to try growing the vanilla orchid!

C.Nick Kruzer

Not something I would recommend for an apartment. I have one that
I bought 3 years ago or so as a couple of small pieces rooted in
a 3 or 4 inch hanging pot. It has now propogated to two more
planters (for a total of 3 pots since I just kept cutting off
pieces from the original pot) and probably a good 50-75 feet of
vines of vanilla orchid spread out over and in and entwined around
various bushes and plants and dirt (and probably other things that
I don't want to know about) and still no flowers.

Somewhere I read that it doesn't/won't flower until it's 25 feet
in length so I've either missed the flowers or it has to be 25
feet in length in a straight line.

So, if you're wanting flowers, that's not a good way to go.

Tracey