On Valentine’s Day, Aad van Luijk (61) does not give his wife roses. Because then she says: Aad, you have made yourself very easy. She’s right. Her husband is a rose grower. And not just a rose grower. He grows the Red Naomi. A large flower with deep red color, velvety glow, and a straight, thick stem. The Mercedes S-Class under the roses, says Aad itself. And the most loved rose with Valentine.
Aad’s whole life is dominated by De Roos. He started in 1984 as a rose grower in Honselerdijk. And in 2007 his company merged with that from two other rose growing families to Porta Nova, just outside Waddinxveen.
In its enormous gasless greenhouse it is 21 degrees and humid. These are my children, he says, standing in a t-shirt in a sea of deep red roses as far as the eye rises. The roses do not grow on the floor, but at rock wool in scaffolding at the table height.
To get the most beautiful rose, you have to pamper, says Aad. And what the rose would prefer, is a matter of trying out endlessly. It listens closely: the color of the LED lamps (not too blue, not too white, not too hard). The amount of water (twice as much as the rose drinks otherwise the roots will seal). And pay attention to nutrients! According to Aad, food must be prepared for roses with the same attention as a dinner in a star restaurant. The fight against fungi (with UV light) and critters (with other critters that eat the rose-eating critters).
After about six weeks the roses are harvested and sorted in an ice -cold shed at length and beauty. The most beautiful, largest, longest and therefore the most expensive go abroad.
What?
Well, that’s the Dutch. Not too crazy, too exuberant and certainly not too expensive.
Frank Olieman (57) knows that too. He is a former rose grower and lives a few kilometers away in Zevenhuizen. When it turned out that none of his children wanted to take over the company, he rented out his greenhouses and became a rose seller. Initially with a cart and a money box on the road. But not everyone paid and then came the rose carousel.
That is a round automatic but not snacks but forests roses behind the doors. A golden idea. He buys the red roses from the Aad company. From the greenhouse to the customer. It is not fresher. It runs like a train, he now has five carousels on his site.
With Valentine, he tackles it bigger. A huge red heart is then on the road. On the spot, Ladies Forests put together: seven, ten, twelve roses. One red rose is also possible. Then it’s a coming and going of men, says Frank. Some see the heart along the road and think: oh yes!
He also has orders. 200 red roses. Then he knows: that’s not born Dutchman.