Hello there,
I have 8 vanilla orchids growing in pots and I would like to know how to best care for them in the winter. Some of the leaves have been developing brown dots and have been turning from green to yellow/brown. What causes this and can I prevent this or reverse the damage done?

Throughout summer and autumn these orchids were growing ~10cm a week and have since stopped in winter. They have a good matrix of decaying matter and soil in the pots and have a climbing frame composed of coconut husk and sheep wool. These orchids are about 1 year old and we're growing from cuttings and haven't reached maturity yet. I've installed a misting system but have been rarely using it in the winter because of the lack of heat and humidity.

Thanks for your help!

Here's some of my happy orchids :). Im from the Gold Coast Australia also.

@Sugarcane or @Australis may be able to help.

Mine didn't do well.

@Andre_VanillaOrchids My sister lives in Melbourne!

@GigiPlumeria Thanks for the tips. I'll give it a go

Nice set up @BigBill can help too!

I'm afraid I have no experience growing Vanilla orchids, although I would like to try one day. That said, I am concerned that you say they are planted in "a good matrix of decaying matter and soil" when Vanilla orchids are epiphytes; they need excellent drainage.

The brown spotting could be either a bacterial/fungal problem, or damage due to cold/low humidity - it is hard for me to say as I have no experience growing this genus. You mention that there is a "lack of heat and humidity"; what temps and humidity are you seeing up there at the moment? Down in here in winter, I have to protect some Cym species and their hybrids because they are vulnerable to windburn (cool, dry air damages the foliage).

I was hoping this would get moved to the Orchid forum, so we all can have a look at this question.
I myself have very limited knowledge of growing Vanilla, having tried to grow it and wasn't successful. I hope I am not wrong to say, I don't really think they root very well in a pot, I could imagine the plant snaking up a tree/pole and holding on to that with thick roots. Surely these plants need tropical conditions year around.
I have seen Vanilla growing at Hosier Orchids in Indianapolis some 20 + years ago, it pretty much grew right into the ceiling after covering a bench!

Johannian contacted me yesterday evening about this very post. I wasn't aware of it. This was a new NGA member.
But I responded to Johannian directly by tree mail with cultural advice. I hoped he could relay my advice.
I was able to contact this new member via the new member page and advised them by tree mail as well.

I am still not allowed access to the general question forum so I might never had seen it. It has been 3 months so I gave up.
Besides, if granted access now, I would not utilize it anyway. It still smarts too much.

Hi Everyone,

First of all, thank you very much for all your advice. It's extremely helpful.

I live on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia and throughout most of the year of conditions are 25-35C, with moderate to high humidity and copious rainfall. Our winters can get a little chilly 10-20C. So far, I think my plants are thriving in the pots. I do agree with what people have said about soil compaction and drainage. I used orchid potting mix, combined with sheep and donkey manure (from our hobby farm). As I previous said, during the summer and spring the orchids were growing about -10cm a week! You could literally see them grow! My grandparents who live close by, previous has a vanilla orchid plant which we were able to harvest about 100 beans off, over a 5-6 year period - all hand pollinated. I'm hoping with my 8 plants in a few years, we should be able to grow copious quantities.

I've seen other setups on the Sunshine Coast (200km north of me), which are roughly similarly. They love growing across picket fences, I've seen. I've tried to recreate this using recycle coconut husk and sheep wool (also from the farm), and they don't seem all that interested. I'm tempered to replace it with some more cellulose-based material, but it's just a matter of time.

Back to my initial problem. I think my orchids have stoped/extremely slowed their growth during the winter due our current cold-snap. I also think the brown spots were caused by water droplets being heated by the sun, as they predominately occurred in the lower leaves. I'll let you know if I see any change over the coming weeks. I'm also going to get some more cuttings and plant them in a looser substrate to see if that affects their growth.

I love my vanilla orchids and hope this forum can help other enthusiasts!

I love vanilla orchids too but has not had luck reviving my friend's mom's vanilla bean orchid. It is showing a little bit sign of life but with it being too short I'm surprised it is still alive. Would love to see your progress though.

Hi Andre and welcome to our little slice of Heaven!
Here's how we grow vanilla at the Botanical Gardens here in Tampa Florida.


This is a large landscaping pot with a large tomato cage securely attached ( through the holes at the bottom of the pot and then bent) . We use a mix of good potting soil and orchid bark. Filling the pot nearly full then coiling the vanilla around and around at least 4 times so there's MANY leaf nodes touching the soil. We also used the large 'U' shaped landscaping fabric pins to force the vanilla stem onto the top of the mix. They get watered once a week and are on the darker side of the greenhouse. Getting the same light as Phals and Oncidium. Our greenhouse doesn't get any colder than 60 degrees F in the winter. We fertilize every week for 3 weeks then the 4th week apply Epsom Salts.

Hi Andre, I'm in Florida too, and it sounds like my climate is fairly similar to yours, a minimum of about 45deg. F (6deg. C) very rarely in the winters here. Hot and muggy 30 to 35deg. C in summer, with a sea breeze and heavy rains in June through September.

My Vanilla Orchid is currently growing in a basket hanging up in my pool cage. It has orchid bark and some sphagnum moss as medium. It gets full sun through the screening of the cage (about 20% shading at most) for most of the day in summer. It gets a generous misting every morning through the summer months, and a light misting in winter as well. There's no such thing as too much water or humidity for these, I think.

In winter it will be moved to a larger pot and grow on a tall totem of tree fern (I had a tree fern in my garden that mysteriously died). For the cold weather, it will live in my 'hoop house' which is on the south-facing sunny side of our garage, protected by frost cloth on the coldest nights. The hoop house has all my warmth-loving divas in it, never goes below about 12 deg. C at night plus is protected from the cold northerly winds that arrive after a weather front passes through.

There's also a very large and lusty Vanilla Orchid growing as a permanent display in the huge greenhouse at our local botanical gardens. It is planted in the (sandy) ground with bark and amendments and grows throughout the rafters of the greenhouse, 20ft. up and across in some places. It gets lots of sunlight up there, year round. They have actually succeeded in growing vanilla beans on this huge plant there, with careful attention to hand-pollination of the beautiful, fleeting flowers.