Plant Neglect Works?

My mom is an avid gardener. In fact, my parents ripped up their front lawn to make more room for plants (well...and because front lawns are useless). However, even thought the exterior of our house is a flourish of flora (man alliteration is awesome), our inside plants live a rough life of neglect, cat munching, and drought! In fact, pretty much the only plants that survive are cacti and the occasional "neglect friendly" flowering something or other. Well to my utter amazement, the orchid my mom saved from the compost at my grandma's a few years back is blooming! Seriously. Orchids are notoriously picky and it's supposed to be super difficult to get them to rebloom! How in the world did she manage to have this flower! And look how pretty it is:


That might just be nice enough to be my new desktop image! It is so gorgeous! Although when you look at the actual plant, it does have one ugly blemish - those awful stinky air roots that mom didn't trim. I think that is actually probably why it flowered. I'd imagine most people would see those gross wormy shoots grow out of the pot and cut them off. Ick. Here's a full potted picture so you can see them:


Okay, they don't even look that bad in that picture. But I think it's because you're distracted by the pretty orchid blooms. Imagine how ugly that plant was for the last few years with only those crazy wild roots and four measly leaves popping out. Ugly roots aside, apparently orchids will flower if neglected. Way to go mom!