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!
