Hi!

We just bought our house and found this potted plant in the old 'greenhouse' shed. The original potting medium was soil, it was in a 12-inch terra cotta pot, had decaying old leaves and pill bugs in it, and the top layer of soil had gray-blue mold on it. I clipped off all the leaves that looked sick or damaged with a disinfected clipper, but did not disinfect before each new snip. The roots were thin, very branchy, densely connected, and were very clumpy with the old soil, except for one or two thick main stalks of root. . I clipped off the moldy roots on the top layer, tried to gently shake out the old soil, and removed one part of the plant that sort of naturally separated so there wouldn't be such a density of leaves that collect too much moisture at the base of the plant. It is now in in a fresh 8-inch clay pot. The leaves are thick and meaty, and look almost more like a succulent than the images of other vanilla plants that I have been obsessively searching online. The leafstalks each have 2-3 leaves each. The vine stalks are thick but are brown and drier than other vanilla branch stalks that I see online.

Is this a vanilla orchid? I used a plant ID app to help me since I know next to nothing about plants, and decided to repot it in orchid bark after consulting a few gardening shop specialists.

My main concern is about these weird dark purple/black leaves. I'm not sure if they are a disease, or if that is just how fresh leaves look on this plant. The new growths are all purple too. There is a single full-size leaf that is very dark green/purple compared to the rest and I'm not sure if I should clip or let it live.

If anyone can please:
1) confirm vanilla orchid?
2) confirm correct care/potting medium?
3) advise on weird dark purple leaves?

I would GREATLY appreciate it!! I am low-key obsessing over what to do with this little plant!

Thank you very much!!!

Hi Fox!
My first thought looking at your pictures was Stephanotis floribunda/Madagascar Jasmine! I haven't seen enough Vanilla plants to say for sure, but I am looking at the center line in the leaves, to me they look more like those of a dicot.
additional - I think Stephanotis would be a lot easier to handle than a huge Vanilla plant!!

I was thinking Hoya..

Lindsey, so surely not Vanilla, right?

sugarcane said:I was thinking Hoya..

Oh my goodness!!! I think you are right sugarcane---- it looks a lot more like a Hoya than any other plants I have been searching!

My 3 plant ID apps are clearly not the good at their jobs....

It is so crazy hard to ID a plant without their blooms!!

Ursula said:Hi Fox!
My first thought looking at your pictures was Stephanotis floribunda/Madagascar Jasmine! I haven't seen enough Vanilla plants to say for sure, but I am looking at the center line in the leaves, to me they look more like those of a dicot.
additional - I think Stephanotis would be a lot easier to handle than a huge Vanilla plant!!

Thank you so much, Ursula and Lindsey! I now know that I should un-pot this little Hoya out of the orchid bark and replace it with the more soil-y orchid medium

Again, thank you so much!! I was 90% certain this was just a weird vanilla orchid varietal and never would have even known what a Hoya was without your suggestions!

A random google image of what I know as vanilla orchid.

sugarcane said:

A random google image of what I know as vanilla orchid.

That is the exact picture that all my plant ID apps matched to my (now correctly identified as) hoya plant!

Fox, I use this facebook group for any plant ID that I need. They are a huge group of botanists and plant nerds from around the world. They ONLY ID plants. There is no discussion of growing plants, plant uses, whether or not its invasive etc. just ID. and you'll usually get an accurate ID with in minutes. just take a few good photos of leaves how they are arranged on the stem. Where the plant is ( something more specific than 'Northern California') if you've got flowers or seeds show that. Then you can google away!

I agree with Lindsey, my first thought when I saw it was "Hoya" too. Not a vanilla orchid, sorry!

Many Hoyas have a strong vanilla scent and are commonly called Vanilla Hoyas. Perhaps that is where the mix up occurred.