transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:02] Welcome to The Backyard Bouquet Podcast, where stories bloom from local flower fields and home gardens. I'm your host, Jennifer Gulizia, of The Flowering Farmhouse. I'm a backyard gardener turn flower farmer located in Hood River, Oregon. Join us for heartfelt journeys shared by flower farmers and backyard gardeners. Each episode is like a vibrant garden, cultivating wisdom and joy through flowers. From growing your own backyard garden to supporting your local flower farmer, The Backyard Bouquet is your fertile ground for heartwarming tales and expert cut flower growing advice. Alright flower friends, grab your gardening gloves, garden snips or your favorite vase because it's time to let your backyard bloom. Today on The Backyard Bouquet Podcast, I am joined by Linda and Marlies from FAM Flower Farm, a flower business rooted in two Dutch family farms located in the world famous Flower Bulb region in Holland. FAM Flower Farm brings together two families and two farms led by lifelong friends, Linda and Marlies, who have both grown up surrounded by flowers and married into farming families. Their shared history and their deep connection to the land laid the foundation for what FAM has become today. For many years, their flowers, bulbs, and tubers traveled all over the world, long before they ever knew who was planting them. With the rise of social media, something shifted. What was once an anonymous supply chain has turned into a direct relationship with gardeners and people who now follow along with the Dutch seasons, plant alongside them, and share in the joy of watching flowers grow. FAM doesn't just stand for family. It also represents a feminine approach to flower farming, one that celebrates beauty, storytelling, and connection alongside tradition and hard work. Through their fields, photos, and shared moments from the farm, they invite flower lovers everywhere into the heart of their growing world. Linda and Marlies, I'm so excited to have both of you here and to share your story with our listeners. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2:
[02:32] Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[02:33] Hello. Thank you.

Speaker 2:
[02:34] Nice to be here.

Speaker 1:
[02:35] So excited to chat with both of you. I hope you'll bear with me today. My voice was gone for about two weeks and it's just now coming back. I wanted to keep our episodes going for our listeners, so I apologize in advance for a little bit of a scratchy voice. But I'm so excited. I've been following the two of you for a long time now, and I just love that you are two friends who have built a business together. So for listeners who may not be familiar with you, can you start by sharing a little bit about your background and how flowers became such an important part of both of your lives?

Speaker 2:
[03:15] Of course. I'm Linda. Yeah, well, we both grew up here in the flower world region. And yeah, so flowers were never something far away. My father was a flower farmer too, and he had summer flowers and greenhouses. And my brother, he took over the business, and he's now specialized in growing hydrangea flowers in the greenhouse. And later on, I married Henk, who is a tulip grower, and he grows both bulbs and flowers. And yeah, it's really daily business for us. And our kids are working in the farm now too. And on the field that we are living now, so we have the farm in our house, and my father-in-law living next to us. It's for like for 240 years in our Vanderslot family now.

Speaker 1:
[04:04] Amazing. That is a legacy business that your family has built.

Speaker 2:
[04:08] Wow. It really is a family business.

Speaker 1:
[04:13] And what about you, Marlies?

Speaker 2:
[04:14] Yes. My father was not a flower grower. I grew up near the beach in Nordwijk. It's also in the flower region. But my grandfather, he was a bull grower. So a lot of my uncles and the family were also bull growers, but not my own family where I was raised. As a kid, I played a lot around the family farm. And later I worked a lot during the school holidays to pick the flowers from the fields in the area here, and also cleaning the bulbs in summer periods. And later when I was 18 years old, I met Hubert in the local disco in Nordwijk, and he was a flower man. So, yeah, this is what I met Hubert. And so this is why I became in the business, in the flower business. And his grandfather already grew dahlia, and his father, he had a big greenhouse with Sant Paulia flowers. I don't know the plants. You know them?

Speaker 1:
[05:21] Say that one again for me?

Speaker 2:
[05:23] Sant Paulias? I don't know if it's the English word.

Speaker 1:
[05:27] I don't know that word. I'm going to have to look it up.

Speaker 2:
[05:29] There were small purple flowers for inside the house in small pots, and they were very popular 20, 25 years ago. But he didn't grow boobs at the fields. His grandfather did, but not his father. So he started growing from his grandfather.

Speaker 1:
[05:52] Gotcha. So both of you have a long lineage of flowers that have pretty much always been in your lives.

Speaker 2:
[05:59] For sure. Definitely.

Speaker 1:
[06:01] I love that. You both are so lucky. For so many of my listeners and myself included, it's a bucket list dream to visit where you live someday. So this is, it's perfect timing for this conversation also because all of these bulbs are about to start blooming soon.

Speaker 2:
[06:22] So the Chilean fields will be a full bloom and the whole region will be covered with lots of tourists from all over the world. So it always makes us realize how special it is. Because for us, it's like daily normal life.

Speaker 1:
[06:35] Absolutely. Well, I want to kind of continue with the beginning here and we'll touch more on the bulbs in a little bit. But the two of you have been friends since middle school. How did you build a business on top of being lifelong best friends?

Speaker 2:
[06:55] It was really fun. There was trust already between the two of us, and we are a good couple together. We do different things in the company, but together we can realize everything. That helps us a lot in farming and business, and every day brings other things and something new. We can speak honestly together. That's very special, and we make quick decisions together. So we're just the two of us, so not a management team or whatever. We can make quick decisions in everything. And we know each other such a long time, so we can laugh together, and sometimes it's chaotic everywhere. But we survive together. That's no problem at all.

Speaker 1:
[07:52] You said several things there that I think are so important. You mentioned the communication piece, obviously being a big piece of why you are so successful working together. But I love that you also said you can laugh and have fun together. Very important.

Speaker 2:
[08:08] And also we started small, and now we are growing, but when you start small, everything is just fun to do. And during the time you grow, and you professionalize, and you get to know things. So it's not in one day business built.

Speaker 1:
[08:25] Absolutely. Well, I love that you guys had this idea. I'm super curious, were your husbands initially on board? Because you said they also work in the business. So did it take some convincing to combine your two businesses and your two farms together?

Speaker 2:
[08:42] Well, actually the guys are still, they still have their own farm. So the farms are still separated because it's very different product, different season, different fields, and you cannot put it in one farm. But the consumer brand that we built together, that's the connection between the two farms.

Speaker 1:
[09:01] Okay. So there's separate pieces and then you two work together. Thank you for that clarification.

Speaker 2:
[09:08] Yeah. So the guys were always, from the beginning they said, okay, well, we'll see what you do. They did not really understand in the beginning. They said, do your thing, go and take pictures and we'll help you. Because they had like a truck and they had cars and they had crates, and we had lots of stuff that we can use in the beginning because we had nothing. So they helped us to build and later on we more professionalized them.

Speaker 1:
[09:33] I love that. So take us back, you mentioned you started small in the beginning. What did that look like as you were starting out with this dream together? Yes.

Speaker 2:
[09:43] Well, we both had our own careers because we never worked at the farms. Marlies was a construction engineer, so she did something completely different. I always worked in the different sales and marketing jobs in flower business. So for me, it was a bit closer to my work. And during one of the dinners we had with school friends, we were talking about the business of both Hubert and Henk. And we always say they are so passionate, they put so much effort in it, so much time every week. But in the end, the products go to a wholesale or export company and you never hear anything back. You cannot control the prices and it's just you sell it and that's it. And then we say, OK, we live in the Keukenhof area, so all the people, all the tourists coming to the tulip fields and everybody is so enthusiastic. And we say we need to share more and show more the beauty of the farm and not only bulbs and machines and tractors, but show the beautiful side, the romantic side, but also do more story telling about seasons and what's happening on the farm. And that's actually why we said, OK, let's join because we have the tulips and the narcissus and Marlies had the dahlias. So it's a perfect combination of seasons and selling tubers and bulbs. OK, and I think it was almost seven years ago, we just went into the narcissus field and we're starting to post on Instagram some really nice movies and we put our daughters in the field with a nice basket full of flowers and a nice dress on. And within a few months, we were building a whole flower community and people were so enthusiastic to follow and to share it. And it was a different time than with Instagram then than it is now. So there were less people doing that.

Speaker 1:
[11:40] Absolutely. You started about the same time that I did. I started my flower farm eight years ago and there really weren't a lot of people sharing pictures yet on Instagram. It was a lot easier to have a larger reach.

Speaker 2:
[11:54] Have your attention.

Speaker 1:
[11:56] Absolutely. But you were very quick to build a brand with that storytelling.

Speaker 2:
[12:03] Yeah. We also had COVID, of course. It was very bad for the world, but it was good for gardening business, so we had a good kickstart with.

Speaker 1:
[12:14] Everyone wanted flowers then.

Speaker 2:
[12:16] Yeah. Working in the garden, that's the only thing you could do, stay at home and order chandeliers online. It was very good.

Speaker 1:
[12:25] You started with an idea and you started telling stories on social media. Did you know right away that you were going to create business selling bulbs around Europe at that time? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[12:39] Well, from the start, we thought about it on a professional way. We didn't search for a hobby. We were searching for a new way to get a living, and also to help our husband to make a different way of different market approach. That is something as you are a grower, that's why we know how much work it is to grow flowers, grow bulbs, and then also do e-commerce business. It's almost impossible to do together. So we realized that you guys in the US are a lot of flower farmers who do it, both selling and making bouquets and do Instagram and all the e-commerce things. So it's not easy. So it's good to have it separate, but also a little bit combined for us.

Speaker 1:
[13:27] Absolutely. Well, you grow at such scale that I think it would be really hard to do it all by yourself. I think there's a lot of us here in the US that do what you said, but we are much smaller scale perhaps than what you're doing. Or we've built teams like the two of you have built teams to be able to have multiple channels because it's a lot to plant the flowers, sell them to your community, try and also have the online sales and manage the platforms, and the shipping. I mean, you have to learn how to create a warehouse system and a structure.

Speaker 2:
[14:03] The mailbox, the direct messages, the everything.

Speaker 1:
[14:09] Yes, all of it becomes a full-time job. I love that you both have different backgrounds. Did you find that those two backgrounds really complemented each other in building a strong, structured business?

Speaker 2:
[14:23] Yes, for sure. But we've only found out later because we were just friends. You don't know each other in work, work life, but it turned out very, very good because we both have our own specialties and the things we love to do or not. So we give it to the other one who loves to do it. So we have a very good team. It makes life a lot easier.

Speaker 1:
[14:47] Absolutely. Well, that's amazing that you can share some of those responsibilities and have someone to bounce back. But like you just said, friendships are very different than a business partnership. And a lot of people can't combine the two. What do you think has made it so successful?

Speaker 2:
[15:08] Yeah. Well, I think it's also like a little bit of personal. It's like real life. We want to show the real farm. Also the struggles and also the seasons, but also like the beauty and all that that combines. And I hope people really see because now with all the AI stuff that's coming by, we try to tell an honest story and make it realistic. And also we want to make people enthusiastic and hope as we both are enthusiastic about the product, about the flowers, we hope we can bring it over to the audience. And so they get to start in the garden, only a small garden or put some bulbs in a pot, you know, and enjoy.

Speaker 1:
[15:51] Absolutely. Well, you started at the right time before AI was really in the scene. So you've had the opportunity to build an authentic brand.

Speaker 2:
[16:00] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[16:01] And I don't know about in Holland, because I know that English is your second language as we were talking about before we hit record. But the word I keep hearing this year is how important authenticity is. And you've been doing that since day one. People see your faces, they see your children, they see your families. They know that it's a real person behind this brand.

Speaker 2:
[16:23] Someone commented on my picture that it was AI. So I almost cried. No, it's not AI. It's such beautiful. You can't believe it.

Speaker 1:
[16:34] Yes. Well, that's the hard thing is that a lot of this AI content that's now coming out is so realistic.

Speaker 2:
[16:41] It's hard to see the difference.

Speaker 1:
[16:43] Absolutely. Especially, I mean, I watched a video that was very clearly AI on Facebook yesterday, and it was someone, they took all of these egg cartons and made a butterfly on their land.

Speaker 2:
[16:55] Oh, I saw it too.

Speaker 1:
[16:57] The tulips that popped up. I'm going, well, in Holland, you see all of these tulips everywhere that almost doesn't seem real. For us that have never experienced it before.

Speaker 2:
[17:14] It will be challenging, I think, in the coming years.

Speaker 1:
[17:17] Yes. Well, I think I just attended a summit on AI and learned a lot that I found very fascinating. But I think the common thread was that as business owners, we have to continually keep showing our face and telling our story because that's that human connection that AI can never replicate. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[17:36] Well, you can even get your own avatar.

Speaker 1:
[17:39] Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[17:41] Because we are not so good in talking to the camera, so we prefer to show the products and show the fields and also tell something, but not really speaking up to the camera. But I think we have to make the step. Short term.

Speaker 1:
[17:56] But even you, for years, I've seen the two of you ladies with your pictures and you appear in the photos so people know who the human is behind your brand.

Speaker 2:
[18:06] I hope so.

Speaker 1:
[18:08] So, let's see here. I'm getting off track on our questions that I had pre-sent you. I apologize. I'm curious, how do you balance family life, your friendship and farming altogether?

Speaker 2:
[18:26] Well, farming is not a switch. You cannot say on or off. It's always there.

Speaker 1:
[18:33] Totally.

Speaker 2:
[18:34] Yeah, for sure. But the family life is also very important for us. It's always a challenge to find the right balance for us. So, in the seasons, are very busy. So, yeah, every, I think every other family has the same problems too. It's a busy period. And your family, because we all have kids, we have parents and we want to go everywhere. And yeah, what makes it easier is we work at home. So, when the children are at home, we are in the area of the children, not always directly, but they stay at home or they do schoolwork or whatever. So, we are not always on an office, we are far away from the farm, so we work at home. So, the children are raised at the farm, so I think this is also very important for good family life. And yeah, the seasons bring also quiet times in the winter for us. And then we have time to go for a holiday with the family and that kind of thing. But it's never a dull moment, it's always something. Yeah, but the children don't, it's always has been this way of life, so they're used to it.

Speaker 1:
[20:01] Well, I'm sure they're learning amazing work ethic from the two of you. How old are your kids, both of you?

Speaker 2:
[20:09] I have two daughters. My daughter Britt, she is 21. She just went 21 and she's really working on the farm now, full time.

Speaker 1:
[20:18] Amazing.

Speaker 2:
[20:19] The youngest is 17 and she's doing agribusiness education, so maybe she will do something with farming or agriculture too, so we'll see. I have a daughter, she's 21 years old and she studies more about physics, psychology, more.

Speaker 1:
[20:42] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[20:43] Yeah. And my son, he is studying in a technical university. So he's more about the machines and he starts now a special product, but about machines in agriculture world.

Speaker 1:
[21:02] It's in their blood. They have grown up around it. So your children are beyond the little kids stage now and they are becoming adults themselves.

Speaker 2:
[21:11] Yeah. But it was fun because we took the first picture seven years ago. So my daughter, no, it was longer ago, seven or eight, but she was like with a small dress on in the fields with the baskets and she was only nine years old. So now she's 17. So it's a big difference.

Speaker 1:
[21:27] It happens so fast. Mine's 11. And I think back to when she would see a little ladybug and be three years old and be like ladybug. And now it changes so fast. How do you, with your children now being almost all in their 20s, how does this shape the way you think about the future of farming and your business?

Speaker 2:
[21:49] Well, there's big differences because when you look at my father-in-law, for example, who used to run the tulip farm business also together with his brother and his father. Yeah, he's now 81 years old. So he's still walking around that farm and he's driving the tractor wherever he can. And he's, you know, having vegetables and animals. And even last year, he broke his leg, but we put him in his wheelchair on the tractor so he could enjoy the tulips blooming.

Speaker 1:
[22:21] Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 2:
[22:22] He doesn't have a hobby. Work is his hobby. So that's a bit different than from from our husbands. Well, those our husbands are like focusing more on sustainability improvements and more technical things and trying to improve on every level, like healthy soil, smarter crop growing, all those kind of things. And yeah, it comes with a lot of investments because investments are high with techniques, with robot, with AI, all that stuff. And it needs to be invented. So the prices are high. And yeah, and our kids, it's again different. They realize how hard work it is to run a farm. So I'm not sure if they will take over. But in all the times that they were working on the farm, they learned to work hard and not give up. And yeah, the nature is challenging, you know? Every year it's different and not the season is the same. So I think that's something that you, that they will always bear in mind. And whatever they will do in the future, it will bring them further.

Speaker 1:
[23:29] Absolutely. Well, the resilience and the lessons that they learn growing up around this is so important. Sticking with those same lines, this wasn't on my list of questions that I sent you, but I'm curious because we've mentioned AI a couple of times. And there's so much that I have not explored around the realm of AI. Are you seeing AI start to trickle in, especially with your husband's lines of work with automation of the farming?

Speaker 2:
[24:01] Yes, for sure. I think about it as weeding machines, for example. They can see with AI the difference between growing of a tulip or growing of a weed, and then they can just make the weeds go away. With heat, they make it warm, and then the heat goes away. And they're learning now the machine. Yeah, they get smarter and smarter. It will definitely be the future because finding people to do that work is also very hard. It's getting very expensive. So yeah, the robots will need to take over a lot of that work, and they have to get better and better.

Speaker 1:
[24:44] So you're seeing robots in the fields already in Holland?

Speaker 2:
[24:48] Yes, sure. We have robots driving 24 hours a day on the fields with nobody there. They're just programmed and they're just going up in front of the fields, and they are sending their data, and as a grower, you can read the data and see how many virus plants you have this year in your crop, for example.

Speaker 1:
[25:10] It can tell you the virus? Yeah. Wow. It's crazy to think about how much this industry is going to change in the next five years.

Speaker 2:
[25:19] It is, yeah. And with all the demands that there are on the sustainability, we also need to change, so we really need those mechanical things or robots or AI things that can replace that, so that's good.

Speaker 1:
[25:35] I appreciate that you are having this conversation with me. Are you fearful of AI coming into your business?

Speaker 2:
[25:43] Well, yes and no, because in my daily life, it helps me a lot behind the computer. It makes me easy to talk with everyone in the world. I can answer in Russia and I can whatever.

Speaker 1:
[25:56] Unbelievable.

Speaker 2:
[25:57] Yeah, so there's a lot of advantages, but yeah, but as I said, it will also be complicated with the videos and you don't know what you see. What you see now, for example, in the wars, is it a real video or are we just getting mad on each other on something? Absolutely, made up.

Speaker 1:
[26:20] I watched some videos be created last weekend and they were done in about two minutes and they were cinematic quality with the words of whatever the person wanted their ad to be. And I'm going, how are we going to realize what is real and what's not?

Speaker 2:
[26:37] Yeah, they can record your voice and they can make a whole video with your voice. And they can call someone with your voice, you know. How are all the people? How are they ever going to find out how it works?

Speaker 1:
[26:50] Yes. Well, I'm sorry. I'm very much diverging here on our conversation, but I think it's something that's an important conversation to have. I think other countries are a lot more advanced than the US. So it's interesting to hear what you're doing in Holland, because I think we're almost behind in the US. And maybe I'm just in a bubble here, but at least that's my perception of what's happening in farming. Small scale with flower farming, I think other industries, because they're larger, are probably getting more information. But as flower farmers in the US., so many of us farm on less than an acre, that we are so micro scale that we don't get some of this.

Speaker 2:
[27:34] I think it's good to watch at Instagram in Europe and see the farmers there, because we get a lot of questions of people also from the US. Like, how do you plant them? How much do you plant? What soil do you use? So they just ask us and we always give answers.

Speaker 1:
[27:49] Yes, well, I appreciate how freely you share your information. And I think that's why you've built such a large following all over Europe.

Speaker 2:
[27:57] Yeah, well, it's a big fun part of it to share it and to make people enthusiastic and do it themselves.

Speaker 1:
[28:04] Yes. Well, I'll try and get us back on our questions that I had pre-sent to you, so I don't throw you off too much with the language barrier today. But this segues well into this next set of questions. You grow in an area that is so deeply tied to our floral roots. What does it mean to you to grow flowers in a place that has so much floral history?

Speaker 2:
[28:30] This region is very iconic. It's a special, every year it's special again, when the flowers are in full bloom. So people from all over the world come to visit this area in the Netherlands. In springtime, it's for weeks, it's so beautiful. If you're driving here in your car, you always have to take care for all the people in the other cars, because, oh, they see a field, stop. Turn the car on the side of the road, and yeah, it's a special area to live, and for sure, these weeks, the coming weeks in spring, because there are fields full of color everywhere around us. So I live in the middle of the fields, all around my house, it will be so beautiful in the coming weeks, and now it's yellow, and soon it will be purple from the highest sins, and pink, and it's the best time of the year. And in the area here from the Kököf, millions and millions of people visit from all over the world. It's a real bucket list thing for a lot of people. And we understand it is a beauty to visit. I hope everybody can visit the area once in their life. And it was a challenge, the seasons, because we have both farms have, we are in the same season, but we have different seasons, like harvesting and planting season is opposite.

Speaker 1:
[30:01] Right.

Speaker 2:
[30:01] For example, when the tulips are flowering, within a few weeks, and now we are selling the dahlia bulbs. And when the dahlia field is in full bloom in September, we are selling the flower bulbs. So for the consumer, sometimes it's hard to understand why something is flower, when something is flowering, when you have to plant it. So we try to keep on learning and saying that.

Speaker 1:
[30:25] So you're really juggling two crops at the same time. So right now you mentioned it's almost the tulips. And by the time this episode comes out, the tulips will probably be in full bloom. And you'll be shipping dahlia tubers all over Europe at that time. So are you and your business actually harvesting the tulips also? Or is that through your husband's business?

Speaker 2:
[30:50] Yeah, we are glad the husbands are doing that. And they have good machines for that too.

Speaker 1:
[30:54] They have machines that are harvesting all the tulips. Are those automated also?

Speaker 2:
[31:00] Not fully, but they have to be there, but like a one or two people job. And they like a big field from like, for, I would say it's acres, hectares, 10 acres, a few hours and all the flowers are gone.

Speaker 1:
[31:14] Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2:
[31:15] I love the flower heads.

Speaker 1:
[31:17] Oh, that's amazing. Do you share videos of that?

Speaker 2:
[31:20] Yes, it's always going viral and we always have a lot of views. Everybody is crying.

Speaker 1:
[31:26] I'm gonna have to watch for that. That it just sounds, wow, that's impressive. Cause it's such a labor intensive thing for us US farmers. We're literally pulling tulips out of crates all day long for a couple thousand. So. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[31:41] But in the Netherlands, you also have a lot of difference because my husband is also growing flowers in the greenhouse, tulip flowers now, these months until like April. And we are just a small greenhouse. But you have like the real factories, we call it tulip factories. And they are bunching hundreds of thousands of bunches every day. You know, it's unbelievable. They have like eight robots making bunches. And it's so different as how we do it. So there are lots of differences within the Netherlands too.

Speaker 1:
[32:13] Oh, I'm sure, especially probably based on scale. Yeah. And so do you grow all of the tulips or do you have a specialty that your farm is growing?

Speaker 2:
[32:26] Well, my husband is mainly focusing on cut flowers. So he's producing the bulbs for cut flowers. So we can both use them in his own greenhouse or he can sell them to other growers who want to grow them. But we also sell them, of course, for the consumer business because it's just a flower bulb that's good for cutting, but you can also put it in your garden. So that's no problem.

Speaker 1:
[32:46] So your main, through your husband's side of the business, the main goal is to sell the bulbs, not the flowers themselves?

Speaker 2:
[32:55] No, no, yeah, only the bulbs, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[32:58] Okay, and how long does that take? That's quite a process, isn't it? Before they can actually be sold as a cut flower or to be grown as a cut flower?

Speaker 2:
[33:08] Yeah, well, it's like a two-year process. The one year you need to grow the bulb and the next year you can grow the flower and then you can plant back the bulbs again. Maybe you know the process. Some bulbs are thrown away, but you can also plant them again and they can grow another year and then the year after you can use them again for growing flowers.

Speaker 1:
[33:28] So there's one year of resting before they can be grown again.

Speaker 2:
[33:32] Yeah, and we have like, there's a difference between like the planting material, the smaller bulbs, they need to grow more, so they're planting that back in the fields every year, and the bulbs will grow and multiply, so you get more bulbs, but also bigger bulbs, and the bigger sizes are good for growing your flowers, and the smaller ones are again, going into the ground for another year of growth.

Speaker 1:
[33:55] So I'm curious, do you think it's silly that US flower farmers throw away the bulbs after the year? Should we be saving them and letting them grow for a year and then harvesting them a year later?

Speaker 2:
[34:06] It's another job you have. It's another year round process to plan them. You have to search for virus, you have to cut off the flowers, you have to harvest, you have to dry, you have to clean, you have to sort things on size. So you have another business. So I can understand you don't have time for that and just focus on your flower business.

Speaker 1:
[34:29] That's a good point, especially with the cost of tulip bulbs in particular. They're so cheap.

Speaker 2:
[34:34] Yeah, but also the process of growing the bulbs in the Netherlands, I think our circumstances are much easier than that you have in the US most areas.

Speaker 1:
[34:44] Oh, absolutely. So Marlies, your field focuses on dahlias.

Speaker 2:
[34:50] Yes, we grow more than 200.

Speaker 1:
[34:53] 200 varieties?

Speaker 2:
[34:54] More than 200 varieties, yes.

Speaker 1:
[34:57] How many plants do you think you grow?

Speaker 2:
[35:00] Oh, millions.

Speaker 1:
[35:01] Oh, millions! Oh my gosh!

Speaker 2:
[35:03] For sure. Yes. And we grow mainly the more exclusive varieties. There are also standard dahlias varieties. You can buy it at every shop. But we mainly grow the more exclusive varieties.

Speaker 1:
[35:21] Okay. Are you also hybridizing or just growing known varieties?

Speaker 2:
[35:27] No, not by ourselves. We have breeders and sometimes we can buy a new variety and then we try. But it's always different because dahlias, there are so many varieties, it's so easy to grow a new variety. But it's more about that people are going to buy the new variety. So the problem is not to find a new flower, but to sell a new flower. And this is something we see in the beginning. It was very difficult if we have a new variety for my husband to sell it to companies. But now we have our own Instagram. And also the people who buy from the US, for example, for the shops, they follow us and they see the new varieties. And now they ask the export companies, can we please buy these varieties? So it helps our husbands to sell new varieties in the world.

Speaker 1:
[36:23] Absolutely. So all of the bulbs that you are selling from both farms, or from FAM Flower Farm, are coming from your husband's flower fields. Is that correct?

Speaker 2:
[36:36] Yes. All dahlias are coming from our own fields.

Speaker 1:
[36:39] That's amazing. So you're not having to source them from elsewhere. You're able to support the family businesses.

Speaker 2:
[36:45] Yes. We have so many varieties. We have more than enough. So we don't sell all of them every year. Sometimes we choose some other varieties.

Speaker 1:
[36:55] Amazing. So with the dahlias side, are you growing pot tubers or are you growing for clumps? How do you do that to then sell out to Europe? Because I know a lot of people in Europe do this process differently than in the US.

Speaker 2:
[37:10] Yes, for sure. There's a big difference. And we see a lot of discussion about it on social media. We grow the complete clumps. So you plant the complete clump and we do not cut parts of the legs or whatever. So there will always start a new plant and that's normal for us. And we do not do the US way, digging by hands and cutting in, I don't know how many, you can make a lot of plants again.

Speaker 1:
[37:45] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[37:46] We just sell for another price the whole clump. And yeah, but we do mechanically. So sometimes there are smaller or broken legs, but it has no problem at all, because there will always start at least one, two, three, four, five new sprouts from the original tuber.

Speaker 1:
[38:07] Absolutely. Now, I'm curious though, if you're digging up the entire clump and selling it, how are you replicating them? How are you getting more plants? Are you taking cuttings?

Speaker 2:
[38:20] Cuttings, yes. We start from cuttings.

Speaker 1:
[38:22] You start from cuttings and every one of them gives you more tubers the following year.

Speaker 2:
[38:27] Yes, for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[38:29] Do you have any tips?

Speaker 2:
[38:30] From one tuber, maybe you can make 15 or 20 new plants.

Speaker 1:
[38:34] Okay. You're getting even more than us dividing a clump and getting five or seven plants.

Speaker 2:
[38:40] Yes, for sure. It's another way of multiply.

Speaker 1:
[38:46] Yes. Do you have a tip for that? I know a lot of people in the US struggle when they grow from cuttings to get a good solid clump the following year. Is it that you just have amazing soil in Holland? Or is there a secret to getting cuttings to produce good clumps?

Speaker 2:
[39:05] Yeah. I don't know. The sandy soil and the climate because we live nearby the sea. We know the temperatures and the length of the season is very important. Because we know they tried it in so many other areas in the Netherlands or also in other countries. But in the end, you cannot keep them good in the winter. Because in this area, all export companies want to buy only tubers growing from our sandy soil. And it's very small. It's just a few locations in our area where you can grow them. And not when it's another kind of soil. It doesn't work. And if it's too hot, it doesn't work. So also in other parts of the Netherlands, you can't grow them.

Speaker 1:
[39:57] Oh, really?

Speaker 2:
[39:58] No, no, no. I think more than 90% of the dahlia tubers are coming from our area. It's only a few kilometers. But this is the best soil and the best temperatures and the sea climate. And that makes it the best quality for tubers.

Speaker 1:
[40:18] Perfect. That's probably why in the US, the Skagit Valley in Washington does so well. They have all their tulips and they also have so many dahlia growers up there. Now, Linda, you said mowing them down. Is that part of the trick for getting good tubers?

Speaker 2:
[40:36] Yeah, it's always sad to see, but the whole summer, so they are planted in April, May. The whole summer, there's the mowing machine and almost every week or every other 10 days, the whole field is just mown off. So no flowers are growing. It's just green leaves. As soon as the flower starts to pop out, whoop, there is the mowing machine again. So they keep it short. So all the energy will go to the tuber.

Speaker 1:
[41:01] Got it. Okay. So it's very different than someone that's growing them for a cut flower production. So now how do you get your beautiful dahlia photos then? Do you have an area that you reserve to bloom?

Speaker 2:
[41:14] Yes. This is the field where we make the tubers for the new cuttings for the next year.

Speaker 1:
[41:21] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[41:21] So we plant them all, yeah, a lot of all varieties in the fields, and we control these plants every week. So we are sure we make the new cuttings from good, healthy plants. And these are the plants that are in full bloom at our field.

Speaker 1:
[41:38] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[41:39] The modern material.

Speaker 1:
[41:41] So you can see what you're getting and test them for virus or look for signs of virus and all of that. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[41:47] And there's even in the Netherlands, we have an inspection agency. And when we say the lot is clean, we have checked it several times and there's no different varieties or any stick or whatever in there. And the inspection agency comes and they're going to check if you have done your job well and they approve and say, okay, now you can mow it off because now we know the lot is clean and there's no mixtures or whatever and the cuttings next year will be good as well.

Speaker 1:
[42:16] Such a fascinating process at scale compared to our small, probably you call them like backyard settings that we're doing here. I mean, I grow about 5,000 dahlias and it feels like so many. And then you say you grow millions and I'm like, oh, I'm just like a little drop in the bucket.

Speaker 2:
[42:34] You cannot compare it.

Speaker 1:
[42:35] No, but I want to see it. I want to see it so badly now. It sounds so incredible and such interesting processes.

Speaker 2:
[42:44] You need to come in September when the field is in bloom.

Speaker 1:
[42:47] Oh, I would love to do that.

Speaker 2:
[42:50] You can walk into the candy store and search all those 200 varieties.

Speaker 1:
[42:55] It would be like a kid in a candy store. The problem would be that I can't bring them back to the US with me. You don't ship to the US, do you, with your bulbs?

Speaker 2:
[43:06] No, it's too complicated for us to get all the control documents to the consumers.

Speaker 1:
[43:14] Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[43:15] Yeah, it's too expensive and too complicated. So we only ship to Europe countries. But there are a lot of export companies who do export our bulbs, our varieties to the US as well. So there are names or export import companies where you can get our varieties as well.

Speaker 1:
[43:33] Are you allowed to share those names on here? Is that confidential?

Speaker 2:
[43:38] No, I don't know. There's a company in the Netherlands, and then it goes to a broker, I think it's got it, in the US. And there are always two or three companies between before it is somewhere.

Speaker 1:
[43:51] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[43:52] But look for the varieties and you'll probably find it.

Speaker 1:
[43:56] Okay, that's good too. I live in a very heavy agricultural area. We're one of the largest exporters of pears and cherries. And so, it's almost our agricultural time of year where hundreds of thousands of people drive through. We have what's called the Hood River Fruit Loop, because all the orchard trees are in bloom. So it's a sea of orchard trees. So if you ever can sneak away, we'd love to have you here to see that too. But it's interesting. There's so many layers because I watch the other farms around me, they're all orchards and it's like they have a packing house and then it goes to a distributor and then it goes somewhere else. It's like, who knows how many layers it's processing through before you actually get that fruit.

Speaker 2:
[44:39] Yeah, and that's the big difference between the company of our husband and our companies because we are really in direct contact. We just talk with our customers. We have the connection there and that's so much fun.

Speaker 1:
[44:53] Which is amazing. You're really creating a direct-to-consumer experience in an industry in Holland that is so at scale that you rarely get to know the farmer, so that's really unique.

Speaker 2:
[45:06] Yeah, and it's always fun because people say they want to visit us and go into the tulip fields because they say you have the most beautiful tulip farm in the world, but there are like 500 other tulip farms, but they don't show it.

Speaker 1:
[45:20] Right. It makes a huge difference when you show up and you show what you have, and then people feel that connection. What has changed in your business since you started sharing your story online?

Speaker 2:
[45:38] Yeah, well, what not? Yeah, it's also, we often say to each other, we more and more realize how special it is, and because for us, we also grew up in this area and we saw it every season and there it is again, but we really want to tell also our kids and say, look around you and see the beauty of it and how unique it is. But yeah, what's also fun is that when we are shipping our boxes and the consumers receive their box, and we see them making unboxing videos, and we see how they plant them, and we see how they grow them, and how they enjoy that they cut a bouquet of flowers. And that's a world of difference, getting to see that and also getting feedback and questions. So we're learning also a lot from the customers.

Speaker 1:
[46:35] That experience, getting to watch them unbox it, must be such good feedback, like you said also, to see how is the customer receiving this and what are they doing with it. And it probably gives you new ideas for your business as well.

Speaker 2:
[46:50] Yeah, definitely. And it gives a lot of energy also to see the deck.

Speaker 1:
[46:56] Absolutely, it's so rewarding to see people enjoying, because we work in such a special industry that's creating beauty. So to see how people are receiving that is really something special. Is there a message or reaction from any of your customers that has particularly stayed with you when you've watched one of those unboxing videos or a message you have received?

Speaker 2:
[47:21] Well, yeah, it's often the small things like, you know, I've never planted something and now I have flowers in my garden, or I had so much fun planting with the kids and they were so enthusiastic, they want to remove all the garage and we grow more flowers, stuff like that, just the small experiences of people who are happy and back in nature and just enjoying their time in the backyard, close at home and relax and have the fun of growing something. I think it's not bigger than that.

Speaker 1:
[47:54] You're creating such an event.

Speaker 2:
[47:56] But also sometimes people who get sick or get other problems, and then working in the garden can also make it positive again. And yeah, just be in the garden and enjoy the plants and the birds and everything around you. It can make people positive again and help to get better or whatever. We have a new slogan since last year and we say, grow your own happiness.

Speaker 1:
[48:22] Oh, I love it.

Speaker 2:
[48:23] So, you know, that's it, because it's in your backyard. It's not very expensive. It's close by. Everybody can do it. You know, it's in your own hands to be happy in your backyard.

Speaker 1:
[48:39] You're giving them the tools to create an experience.

Speaker 2:
[48:42] Yeah. And it's so much fun if people tell us, so I grew flowers and I gave them to my colleague or to my neighbor or whatever.

Speaker 1:
[48:50] I'm so proud.

Speaker 2:
[48:51] Yeah. And it's just about one or two flowers. You don't have to give a whole bouquet, but if you gave only a few flowers, people make them so happy. Oh, it's what we really like.

Speaker 1:
[49:02] Absolutely.

Speaker 2:
[49:04] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[49:05] Well, I'm curious because you mentioned you have your new slogan, grow your own happiness. Looking at the future, we've talked about AI changing things. You have this new slogan. What are you most excited about for the future of FAM Flower Farm?

Speaker 2:
[49:24] Well, it's more about letting the community grow and keep sharing the happiness and making other people enthusiastic. So we will be focusing more and more on writing blogs and making videos to explain things and to make things easier. And for example, everybody who orders Dahlia's or whatever, he gets a FAM magazine. It's like 68 pages of inspiration, but also tips and planting guides and stuff like that. We just want them to succeed.

Speaker 1:
[49:59] Amazing.

Speaker 2:
[50:00] That's where is the future.

Speaker 1:
[50:03] What do you hope people feel when they receive an order from your farm?

Speaker 2:
[50:11] Joy and happiness. The tubers are not so very beautiful. So we have to add the happiness in the box and in the magazine. And also spread it, you know, involve your neighbor, involve your kids, your mom, whatever.

Speaker 1:
[50:37] Amazing. If someone is listening today and dreaming about starting something new, whether that's a garden or a flower business with their friend, what encouragement would you give them?

Speaker 2:
[50:50] Yeah, I think, yes, just start. Yeah, just start. And start small. Don't start big, you know, just plant something and then learn and enjoy. And next year you can do again and try again. And make some improvements and, you know, talk with other people about it and share the joy. I think don't start too big, it makes it too complicated.

Speaker 1:
[51:14] That's great advice. Linda and Marlies, we've talked about a lot today and this has been a really fun conversation with you. Is there anything I haven't asked you that you wanted to share with our listeners today?

Speaker 2:
[51:37] Not special. I think we have covered lots of things already. It's a different world to the US and the Netherlands, I think. Yeah, and we can learn from each other, and we can learn from the people around you, and everybody should start at least in your garden with a few pots. And even if you don't have a garden, buy a bucket and put some bulbs in it, and you will see spring coming and summer flowers, and share your flowers. And I think this is the most important of our green life.

Speaker 1:
[52:14] That's really beautiful advice. Thank you. Okay. I have been doing something that I started in 2026. I'm doing a series of quickfire questions to end our conversation. So since there's two of you today, I'll ask the question and then we'll have both of you answer. Does that sound good? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[52:33] At the same moment.

Speaker 1:
[52:35] Maybe not at the same moment. We'll take turns. How about that? The first question is, what is your favorite flower to grow and why?

Speaker 2:
[52:46] For me, it's dahlias, of course. We have some very beautiful varieties from Joey. Joey is a man from Belgium and he's a breeder of dahlias. We have bought from him a Joey weenie.

Speaker 1:
[53:02] Yes, that's a beautiful one.

Speaker 2:
[53:04] Yeah. It's one of my favorites. The color and the petals of the flower. It's for sure my favorite.

Speaker 1:
[53:14] What about you, Linda?

Speaker 2:
[53:16] I should say, of course tulips, but I'm going to say narcissus.

Speaker 1:
[53:20] I love narcissus.

Speaker 2:
[53:21] Yeah. It's always like it's the first sign of spring. Now, they're starting to pop out everywhere here in the area. They have such a nice smell and they're such nice, not only yellow, but also like creamy and pinkish and apricot colors. Yeah, I just love them and they're easy to maintain. You just plant them and they come back every year. That's all the things I love.

Speaker 1:
[53:48] Do you have a favorite variety of them?

Speaker 2:
[53:51] Yeah, we have one called Romy.

Speaker 1:
[53:56] Romy?

Speaker 2:
[53:57] Yeah, Romy. She's called after my niece. When she was like four years old, her grandfather had only like a few bulbs and he named it after her. And now we have like a few beds of that variety. And it's so nice with orange and white petals. And yeah, it's my favorite. And because my niece is now 25, so we're 20 years later and we have a big lot.

Speaker 1:
[54:20] Amazing. Have you released that one out into the world?

Speaker 2:
[54:23] Yeah, it's on our web shop as well. So and it's fun if you see it somewhere, it must come from our farm. And I think with the dahlias, some varieties there are exclusively grown by us. So they come somewhere from our farm. They traveled a long way.

Speaker 1:
[54:39] It's so special to see that and how that ripple effect goes out into the world. Okay, my next question is, why do flowers matter to you personally?

Speaker 2:
[54:50] Yeah, it's a big part of our lives. Flowers always bring happiness and it's the best product of the world, I think. What else will you work in?

Speaker 1:
[55:02] You've been around it all your life. It's all you know.

Speaker 2:
[55:04] Yeah, it's all there is.

Speaker 1:
[55:08] What is one thing you wish more people understood about flower farming?

Speaker 2:
[55:14] Well, it's not only fun, but there's also risk and there is nature every year doing another job. It's weather conditions, it's a lot of work that you don't see, but it's there and well, it's quite challenging.

Speaker 1:
[55:35] Marlies, do you have anything you want to add to that?

Speaker 2:
[55:38] Yeah, also sustainability. We work a lot on it at our farm. It's not always as black and white. I don't know if it's also in English, but it's not always good or not good. As farmers, we do a lot of work in sustainability, and yeah, I think this is also something which people should more understand about because our men are always working with nature and nature is their product. So they work with the soil and the plants. And yeah, I think this is an issue for the future, to tell more people about how we work, how we make improvements and getting better and better and better. And yeah, we cannot do it in one day, but give us some time and we will manage it. It has always been that way.

Speaker 1:
[56:37] Absolutely. That's such great advice. Okay. What are you most grateful for that Flowers has given you beyond the blooms?

Speaker 2:
[56:47] Well, for us, it's the connection. Yeah, the connection with the people and the Instagram and the customers. And it opened up our lives as well, because now we are here in a podcast, but we also have written a book and we are invited to some events. And we met a lot of people. So it brings us into the bigger world. That's fun.

Speaker 1:
[57:10] It's so fun. Marlies, do you have anything you want to add to that or do you agree?

Speaker 2:
[57:15] Yes, also in the family and in the big world. To share and to be able to share with the world. That is why we are very grateful for. And yeah, we can make people happy, I think. And also the messages we sent by the socials. We know we've met people on the fields and not for everybody. The world is so full of colors and we hope we can share the color of, yeah, colors of life, colors of nature. And we can brighten the day of some people. And maybe it's only a photo on the field of socials, but that's okay as well.

Speaker 1:
[57:57] Absolutely. You never know if that photo might change someone's life. Yes, for sure.

Speaker 2:
[58:02] It can bring hope for people. And yeah, I think that's good.

Speaker 1:
[58:06] And those are beautiful answers. Thank you both. Well, before we say goodbye, you mentioned you're grateful for the connection. Where can our listeners find you?

Speaker 2:
[58:17] You can go to our web shop, but we're only selling to the European countries, but it's www.famflowerfarm.eu, EU for Europe. And of course, on Instagram, on Facebook, on FAM Flower Farm is one word.

Speaker 1:
[58:35] Perfect. Well, we will have links in today's show notes so that people can come check you out because we do have listeners all over the world. So our listeners in the UK, oh, excuse me, the UK and Europe can buy from you. Is that correct, UK?

Speaker 2:
[58:49] No, not UK.

Speaker 1:
[58:50] Not the UK, I take that back.

Speaker 2:
[58:52] Outside the EU now.

Speaker 1:
[58:55] Okay, so anyone in the EU can buy from you guys. Well, Linda and Marlies, this has been really fun getting to chat with you. Thank you for making time to join us on the podcast. I hope to maybe record one of these someday, in person, if I could ever make it out there to see them in bloom.

Speaker 2:
[59:13] You're always welcome to visit our fields, and we're happy to receive you. Thank you for inviting us, for having us.

Speaker 1:
[59:21] Thank you. Well, if you ever want to come to the US and visit our agritourism, you're always welcome here too, the door is always open. So thank you ladies for your time, and we'll talk to you again in the future.

Speaker 2:
[59:33] Thank you. Bye.

Speaker 1:
[59:34] Bye-bye. Thank you, Flower Friends, for joining us on another episode of The Backyard Bouquet. I hope you've enjoyed the inspiring stories and valuable gardening insights we've shared today. Whether you're cultivating your own backyard blooms or supporting your local flower farmer, you're contributing to the local flower movement, and we're so happy to have you growing with us. If you'd like to stay connected and continue this blossoming journey with local flowers, don't forget to subscribe to The Backyard Bouquet Podcast. I'd be so grateful if you would take a moment to leave us a review of this episode. Finally, please share this episode with your garden friends. Until next time, keep growing, keep blooming, and remember that every bouquet starts right here in the backyard.