Hi everyone!

I'm new to orchid growing and I'd love to grow Vanilla planifolia.

I have a small greenhouse set up with an electric heater and that seems to work very well. However, we get power outages around here and with outdoor winter temperatures around 15°F at night my poor greenhouse wouldn't stand a chance, so I've been looking into backup heaters.

I'm considering propane right now but I'm worried that the burning propane might hurt a vanilla orchid due to the fumes. I only plan on using propane when the power is out which could last a few hours. Are my fears justified? If so, what alternatives do you recommend for backup greenhouse heat?
Thanks for reading, and any input would be sweet!

Hi and welcome to the Orchid forum!
I just looked through this thread -
The thread "Curious about the cost effectiveness of electric heating" in Greenhouses forum
I assume life got in the way and you really would like to proceed with your plan? Perhaps others here have some more answers for you.

I have never used propane as a heat source in either of my greenhouses. One small greenhouse was electric, the other used oil.
I did use kerosene to supplement my second, larger, 300 square foot greenhouse. The issue there was to keep the burning area, the wick, clean. The dirtier the wick got, the more uneven or dirty the emissions became. There in lies your problem.
If propane burns cleanly, and I think that it does, I would get rid of the electric heat entirely and go with propane.

Vanilla orchids are warm growing orchids. They will be very unhappy without enough sunshine during the day and will slow their growth way down when exposed to temperatures under 60-65 degrees.

Hi Valleyherb, welcome to our little slice of Paradise here at the Orchid Forum!
I volunteer at the USF Botanical Garden here in Tampa Florida and their orchid greenhouse is heated exclusively with propane. I've never seen any problems caused by fumes so you should be fine. Friends that also use propane have to have some sort of 'jacket' on the tank when it gets really cold ( yes, that does happen in Tampa!) so do some research first about how to keep your tank from freezing!

ValleyHerb, another thing you need to think about as a person new to orchid growing, you don't start out trying to grow a difficult orchid. You try easier types first.
Put yourself in a 5 year plan. Get your greenhouse in order. Try easier varieties first, things like Phalaenopsis, Oncidiums, Cattleyas perhaps. And once you grow them and get them to bloom again and again, then you try something more difficult.
I can't swim really, 74 years old, and I can't really swim. But I am not going to learn by cliff diving in Mexico! I would kill myself for sure!
If you know very little about orchids, it is my suggestion not to start with a hard one to grow. As I stated above, Vanillas are tropical orchids. Sun, warmth, water and humidity are essential.
Yes, I understand the cool factor when it comes to growing vanilla and harvesting seed pods but I would consider other options.

Thank you all for the advice!

From what I can gather from you all, it seems like propane would be a fine source of heat and, in fact, I could likely switch to heating exclusively with propane without issue. However, I should start with easy orchid varieties before working my way up to vanilla.

Sounds like a plan!
Hang out with us and perhaps look through our monthly bloom threads, surely we might tempt you growing some pretty stuff very soon!

I'll check them out for sure!