Voodoo Orchids

Three years ago DIL1's parents gave Mom an orchid plant for Mother's Day. My mother, who usually kills philodendrons, kept the care tag and bought a little bottle of orchid fertilizer. She put the plant on a wash stand about six feet from a south facing patio door. It only gets direct sunlight in the dead of summer because she's on the second floor of three and the upstairs balcony overshadows hers most of the year, so the little orchid gets indirect light. She said she gives it a little drink when she thinks of it and the top of the soil is dry. I posted a picture last spring when all of the buds had opened. After a few months all the flowers dropped off and the stalk began to die back, then a miracle happened, another flower stalk began to grow. Buds swelled, and more orchids opened. So now it's January and that crazy plant has been blooming since April 2010! Durwood says he thinks she's got a rainforest in there, I think it's a fake. She pooh-poohed both suggestions. She swears it's real. Whatever it is, it sure is pretty.