What started with an empty Chinese collection container filled with palm seeds about twenty years ago grew into a leading palm company in the Netherlands. But in the meantime the curtain has fallen for Garden Palms in Erica. The company was declared bankrupt about four weeks ago.
The 25 -year -old journey of Herbert Riphagen in the palm world started far from Drenthe. “I was born in Indonesia, my parents did development aid there. I came to the Netherlands in the 90s. I had already traveled a lot at that time and so I knew that it should be possible to get palms to the Netherlands. Palmen coming from cold areas, for example the Himalayas.”
Those specific species were not easy to get. “I started ordering seeds ourselves. If we had ordered Chinese and had an empty bowl, I planted them in it. At one point the entire attic was full. I also had to do everything away from my wife, because a little one had to come. A baby room had to come.”
But it didn’t stop with a hobby. Riphagen met growers at a fair in Spain. “My company then started germinating palm seeds for Spanish and Italian growers. That’s how it started, in the mid -90s. But they all declared me crazy that I went into the palms.”
Riphagen is the son of a tree grower, but received little support from the working people. “They went to make mutual bets that all those palms would die if they came to the Netherlands.”
The opposite turned out to be true. Riphagen started with a wholesaler. “We put a lot of things from Spain and Italy in the greenhouse and that was delivered to the wholesaler. Later we also started a webshop.”
Storm ran in the spring. “Sometimes there were twenty people. We always tried to tune the company. At one point we decided to sell the webshop. It became too busy, too much.”
But the sale did not bring what was hoped. “That webshop became worth less and less. In the meantime we had a lot of stock and then the prices plummeted. If you add everything, you will come to the point: guys, we have to close things.”
Still Riphagen remains positive. “I’m fine,” he says four weeks after the bankruptcy. “It is not that you are suddenly bankrupt a month ago. You have been in the palm market for 25 years, so you see it coming a bit.”
“The greenhouse is rented, so that’s where it stops,” says curator Jan van Burg. “But the company went further into another company.” Riphagen: “At that company I am also involved and appointed to sell the palms as a director. So the next three months I am still in the greenhouse to sell the palms.”
The sale to private individuals will start on Monday. The discounts are higher every week. “The last week everyone can come and pick them up for free.”