'Enjoying the sunshine and colors in the garden'

In her flower store in Apeldoorn, florist Erika Oldenhof creates beautiful, colorful arrangements in various themes every day. 'Every season is unique with the beautiful materials,
that's what makes our profession so extra beautiful!'

'For inspiration I look carefully around me; what is going on in fashion, architecture, shop windows and the home decorating magazines and from these I often get ideas for materials, use of form and color. The many floral prints in fashion are also striking now.'

'Summer for me is being outside as much as possible and spending time in the garden with friends, BBQ, drinks, enjoying the sun and the colors in the garden. I like to use materials from the season, beautiful peonies, Passiflora, Ginkgo, Delphinium, Lathyrus et cetera. Trend is flowers from the picking garden. There is also
more demand in the store for (organic) field flowers.'

'Striving to balance sustainability, uniqueness creativity'

Student florist Gerrit van Aalst won a gold medal at Skills The Finals for the second year in a row. The new Dutch Student-Flower Binding Champion will represent the Netherlands
Netherlands at the Worldskills in France.

'With love I work with beautiful materials straight from the nursery - this allows me to always find that one special flower with a unique color, length or a special variety that distinguishes and embellishes my work.'

'I strive to balance sustainability with maintaining uniqueness and creativity. I am currently focusing on designing frames and bases that can be reused multiple times - but in a different way each time so that the floral works are always unique. In addition, I am working on creating large structures that take up little space for storage after disassembly. That also makes it easier with transporting or storing the frames.'

'In my spacious garden I grow lots of flowers and plants'

Master florist Birgit Davids-Schuurman is the owner of floral trade school for adults, Floral Academy, in Ede. 'I teach students who want to deepen or (further) qualify as florists. Summer means a slightly quieter time for me, spending a lot of time outside in the garden, enjoying family and friends.'

'In my own generous garden I grow many flowers and plants suitable for floral arrangements. In summer there are many varieties of flowers available. So I love to go through the garden with the knife and collect all kinds of materials for a summer bouquet or arrangement.'

'My floral work is characterized by versatility, I love variety: sometimes very minimalist and austere, other times natural, bloody kitsch or just classical. In terms of colors, I often choose ton-sur-ton, although I can certainly appreciate a colorful creation as well.'

'I love summer the most anyway'

Freelance floral stylist Fiona Konings has been working primarily in events since 2002. "In addition to performing floral styling, I also started photographing.

'I get my inspiration mainly from nature. But, and I think about this now: actually, I get inspiration from almost everything around me. I like to combine my love of nature, flowers and butterflies in my photographs. For example, the arrangement with the roses would be a beautiful setting for an inspirational photo shoot!

'Although I can really enjoy all seasons, I still love summer the most. The outdoors, the long evenings, the happy people, the warmth. In the summer you can literally recharge yourself. And of course, with a summer theme, the sunflower cannot be missing!'

Pure Summer

After the long rainy winter and late spring, the arrival of summer is perhaps even more welcome than other years. And how nice it is then that the flower trade can give full expression to that with a great assortment of summer flowers.