I made an orchid!

It seems a cruel twist of fate that my mother who has the greenest thumbs in all the land has created an offspring who just has to look at foliage and watch it wilt.

My garden is as dead as dead could be. I am in the process of trying to bring it back to life, but at the moment it's in the stage where I get depressed going outside. 

But apparently I am learning! Or orchids just like to be left to their own devices (I suspect its the later). 

Years ago my mum gave me an orchid she had found deposited in a tree on her footpath by a friendly neighbour. I diligently bought some orchid mix, planted it up and duly forgot about it. It was quite happy to sit in its pot staying not-dead and not-flowering and I was happy to accept this arrangement.

Then a couple of weeks ago two big green sprouts came out of it and I didn't dare to hope they were flower spikes but it turned out they were! And now I have two amazing sprays of flowers in my brown backyard.

Don't ask me what species it is - it's flowering and that's all that I care about :)

Let me know if you have any miraculous gardening stories

edit - had to look it up. I think it's Oncidium altissimum. Let me know if that's wrong