It was me with the vanilla. It climbed about 40 feet up a sabal palm but died from the freeze we had several years ago when I also lost lots of other tropical plant life. When they are small they can be protected and then there are warm winters and they keep on growing until mother nature says, 'not so fast, you don't live in the tropics'.
I now have several variegated ones. One is growing inside my greenhouse, another I have planted outside on a cypress tree. The local animal or insect patrol seems to like to nibble on it. I also lost the part growing in the ground from those same marauders. I simply packed up a mound of mulch around the cut off end and let nature take its course to grow new roots. So far so good. I think the variegated ones are a lot fussier than the plain green ones. I think both need lots of sun to flower.
