Born and raised in the Netherlands, I grew up with a passion for petals in rural Twente. My father, a concrete truck driver, often used cement to enhance our back yard but my mother, unperturbed, never failed to find or create! a crack in that concrete to plant some of her many, many flowers. Her enthusiastic an good flower sense inspired a passion in me that eventually received the focus it deserved when I trained with the Floral Design Institute and became a professional floral designer. Soon after launching Petal Passion in 2005, I realized that the flower industry was not making the earth laugh as Ralf Waldo Emmerson so aptly proclaimed. Agressive growing practices and flowers that had traveled long distances, covered with chemicals, made me rethink the proffession I had chosen.
Being an avid gardener, growing the flowers myself was a logicalbut not simple next step. However I felt strongly that a greener option was essential, so I enrolled in an Organic Master Gardeners course to learn more about organic gardening and started planting many more varieties of cutflowers. Soon I ran out of the space but soon realized that many areas in my neighborhood were either underused or neglected and an eyesore. My hands were itching, my seed- box overflowing and my shovel idle.. I approached my neighbors with my audacious plan and to my delight many offered their plants or spaces for me to grow more of Mother Natures Laughter.