Her adult vanilla provides plenty of green starting material for vegetative propagation. Instead of purchasing expensive young plants from specialist retailers, you can simply grow more specimens from cuttings - and that for free. This guide explains how to do it right.
Propagation by cuttings is promising for vanilla
The best time is in early summer - this is how you cut cuttings correctly
When a vanilla is full of juice, the floral life pulsates right up to the tips of the shoots. This is when you get the most vital cuttings of the season. Choose a healthy, non-flowering vine. Cut these into sections with at least 3 pairs of leaves. The lower pair of leaves is removed to increase the sprouting surface for the new roots.
Please mark the polarity on each cutting. If an offshoot is accidentally placed in the substrate in the opposite direction of growth, it will not root. Furthermore, carry out all cutting work with protective gloves. The sap of a vanilla orchid is slightly toxic and can cause unpleasant itching.
Step-by-step instructions
In addition to the prepared cuttings, please provide small pots for rooting. As a substrate, we recommend lean potting soil or a mix of peat and sand. Follow these steps:
- Fill the recommended substrate into the pot and moisten with lime-free water
- Pre-drill the planting hole for each cutting with a pricking stick or wooden stick
- Plant half of an offshoot in each pot, making sure that no leaves come under the ground
- Insert a support rod into the substrate and loosely tie the cutting to it
Finally, put a transparent plastic bag over the container to create a humid, tropical microclimate. At the bright to partially shaded window seat, keep the substrate constantly slightly moist at 25 degrees Celsius and air the hood daily.
tips
The quality of real vanilla from the kingdom of mother nature is still unmatched. All attempts at synthetic production have so far been in vain. The only result is the well-known vanilla sugar from the store shelf, which can't even begin to compete with Bourbon vanilla. While artificial vanillin contains only a single organic component, natural vanilla is made up of more than 250 organic components.