Overjoyed to Be Here
It’s no secret that I’m an avid fan and adept of garden style. I take every opportunity to work with garden roses for weddings, events, occasions, and my free work. When a marketing director from De Ruiter, the world’s largest rose breeder, Örjan Hulshof called me and invited me to visit their nursery in Amstelveen, about a 20-minute drive from my creative flower studio in Amsterdam, I was overjoyed.
Örjan showed me the greenhouse with dozens of rose varieties, many of which were tagged with a number code instead of a name: Örjan explained that these roses are still being developed for the market, that it takes up to 8 years to produce a perfectly healthy and strong new variety that could be presented to growers from all over the world to be chosen by them for large scale production. I learned that De Ruiter is represented in 25 countries worldwide, their roses grow in different parts of the world, from South America and Africa to my native Russia and China. It was a very informative and exciting first visit.
Rose London Eye and many wonderful new varieties adored by Shari & me at De Ruiter nursery.
The World’s Most Beautiful Roses Bowing Under Their Weight
Örjan came up with the idea to use some of the images from my portfolio for large-scale prints for their office decoration. He selected an image of a wall arrangement made with orange roses and dry materials that I made for my last year’s blog for the Trend Color 2021 theme “Scorched Earth”, titled ‘The Edge of the Cliff‘, as well as a romantic Tuscan flower arrangement, made with beautiful roses from my Italian friend’s garden. You can see it in the article ‘Summer Flowers in Tuscany.’
Overwhelming natural beauty is found in Sahara Bubbles spray roses and in the richness of the greenhouse
I was flattered and honored that my work was selected, but at the same time, I felt that it would be much more valuable to make a few special arrangements with the roses from De Ruiter’s greenhouse for their posters. I was really impressed by some corners of the greenhouse, where roses bowed under the weight, the richness and the beauty of the landscape almost overwhelmed me. We agreed on a date and on November 1, the start of an important week in Aalsmeer, an international trade fair for floriculture, me and my South African colleague Shari Tamar Akal, with whom I wanted to share this great experience, donned two white protective suits and entered this rose breeder’s paradise.
A mind-blowing London Eye rose and sales manager Arjen enjoyed himself with Lavender Bubbles and Alegria sprays.
