Vanilla Orchids by George

Did you know that vanilla (the real kind, not imitation) comes from an orchid flower?  The first picture in the row of thumbnails is a vanilla flower in bloom.  It's not as showy as other orchids, but has those flashy orchids beat, since it has the potential to produce the second most expensive flavoring (next to saffron) in the world!

My amazing husband George grows vanilla orchids, cultivates beans from the flowers, and even makes extract. And if you know what a great cook he is, you can guess that he bakes some mighty wonderful things (and makes ice cream) from the vanilla. I want to show you the intricate process, beginning with the orchid flowering, through pollination and cultivation of the beans.  I'll add photos along the way, since — guess what — it takes more than a year from flower to dried vanilla bean (and you wondered why the real stuff costs so much) ...

Vanilla orchid grows on a vine.  It helps to have a lot of space, but George set up a trellis, so the vine winds up and down and around.  Check out the photo of George's helper, Lars, watching the vanilla grow.

So once the vine gets large enough, and if it gets just the right amount of sunlight, it sends out flower spikes. I've got a photo of the flower spike with several unopened buds.  The photo of the single, unopened flower bud shows a drop of nectar — it's really sweet, though it's not vanilla-flavored. I'm not sure what the purpose of the nectar is; George thinks maybe it's to attract ants to protect the flower.

Have you ever bought an orchid or been given one as a gift, and the flower lasts for a really long time, a month or more?  That's one reason so many people love orchids like phalaenopsis (the butterfly orchid) and cymbidiums.  Well, each individual vanilla flower only blooms for a day.  That means that if you want to cultivate the vanilla, you have to pollinate the flower before it fades.  You get a lot of chances though, because there will usually be several flower spikes with several blooms each on the vine.

The natural pollinator isn't present in most places, so most vanilla, even commercially grown, has to be hand-pollinated. It's not easy, but George has a really good success rate.  He takes a wooden stick and transfers pollen from one part of the flower to another (the anther to the stigma).  You can see the photo of him pollinating a flower.

The next photo after that one is of the flower, immediately after pollination. You can see the other unopened flower buds on the spike. After a short time, the flower collapses.

Stay tuned for more ... next, the flowers that were successfully pollinated will develop into beans.  If you want to learn more, here's a great wikipedia entry on vanilla.

And here's my original blog post. If you're interested, check out some of my other blog entries about my nature photography and the arts and crafts I make from my images and designs.