Interview Heavenly Flowers Delft
Roos van Dijk moved to Delft from the polder to become a florist. She fell in love with the profession and with this beautiful historic city. After dreaming for a long time about having her own flower store, she finally made the decision to make it happen. The flower store of an old employer came her way and in the summer of 2022 she transformed the store into a new flower store, called "Hemelse Bloemen Delft.
How do you like having your own flower store?
Hemelse Bloemen is located outside the center of Delft. When I just started with the store I found that quite exciting, because how are you going to attract new customers if they don't just walk by? Meanwhile I have found my way in this. I have a weekly promotion that I promote through various channels and I send out a newsletter. I notice that I am increasingly visible and more and more people are coming to the store. In addition, I also had the advantage of starting with a base, as I inherited part of the previous owner's customer base.
Which segment does your flower shop serve?
As a flower store, I try to be there for every wallet. For example, I always offer a discounted "take away" and I have various flower arrangements on display for a variety of prices. The pots and vases are more exclusive, so I appeal to a higher segment.
Besides the customers who visit the store, I also serve companies about half the time, such as the Municipality of Delft, Museum Prinsenhof Delft and Delft University of Technology (TU). Some business customers have an ongoing subscription, for them I then make daily or weekly beautiful bouquets and flower arrangements for on the reception desk. For special (festive) days and events I also make work, for example wreaths for the commemoration of the dead.
What makes the profession so fun for you?
I am more than just a florist, I am an entrepreneur! I like working with local entrepreneurs the most. The baker around the corner buys flowers from me and I buy a loaf of bread from him. The same goes for clothing stores and restaurants that I visit and they buy flowers from me. The mutual contact and relationship you have with each other is what makes entrepreneurship so much fun for me. Relationships are far from business; on the contrary, it's very personal! We support each other and that creates togetherness in this beautiful historic city.
What does your flower assortment look like?
I personally like wildflowers very much, so they are reflected in my store assortment anyway. What I also find important is that the assortment changes with the seasons. So I use seasonal flowers as much as possible and buy flowers grown in the Netherlands whenever possible. I have love for the sector and therefore want to support the Dutch growers as much as possible.
For special orders, with a generous budget, I still sometimes want to buy flowers grown abroad.
Which flowers always come back in the assortment?
In Delft, of course, you can't do without Delft Blue. That is why Delphiniums are always part of my assortment. To give my work a nice natural look I always have some branches and grasses in the store. Roses are also always present and I prefer to have flowers that have yet to open. Think of the Iris, a Lily or the Alstroemeria. These are flowers that transform a bouquet and surprise the customers.
In addition, I also have a wide range of silk flowers.While before I always said, "I'm never going to sell silk flowers, I only sell real flowers". I've come back from that. As an entrepreneur, you also look at your offer, sales and customer demand in a very businesslike way. The demand for silk flowers kept growing, so eventually I decided to sell silk flowers of the brand Sil-ka, because in my opinion they have the best quality.
What is your favorite bouquet?
My favorite bouquet is a surprise bouquet. To put together a really good surprise bouquet, I use flowers that have not yet opened, think Tulips, Irises, Alstroemeria, Ranunculus and the Lily. I purchase the flowers and arrange them in a bouquet while they are still in bud. So it looks like a field bouquet, only fewer or no showing flowers are used in a surprise bouquet. The bouquets in the store don't always look as bright then, this is why these bouquets sell themselves a little less compared to the more toning bouquets with open flowers. I try to persuade customers when buying a surprise bouquet. Personally, I like that very much and hope that once convinced, people come back next time for the same kind of bouquet because they were so positively surprised.
Another favorite of mine is the edible bouquet. In the summer, we purchase edible flowers from a local grower and make bouquets of them for the tables of local restaurants. These bouquets include Marigold, Dahlia, Marigolds and Dill.
What makes a bouquet a good bouquet in your opinion?
How often does it happen that people come home with a beautifully tied bouquet and then find out that they don't have the right vase for the bouquet? For example, the bouquet is placed in a cylindrical vase with a wide neck and then it falls apart completely. So for me, a bouquet is only really good if it is tied properly. During my training as a florist, I was taught to arrange corn sheaves. When I started working, this was one of the first things I had to unlearn right away. Now I prick the flowers on a base of greenery, which makes the bouquet fall apart very nicely in the end and still stand well.
I see the Alstroemeria as a kind of steady reliable player who is always there.
What do you like best about the Alstroemeria and how do you use it?
The best feature of the Alstroemeria is the surprise effect as well as the fact that the flower is very strong. In addition, the flower is available in many colors. In my assortment I often have yellow, bright pink, soft pink and salmon pink. I only have red and white during the winter and Christmas period.
I see the Alstroemeria as a kind of perennial reliable player that is always there. So I often use the Alstroemeria for a variety of pieces, from picking bouquets to table top bouquets in small vases. So because the Alstroemeria has such a long vase life, I really enjoy using the flower for subscriptions for businesses. For organizations, it is nice that the flowers can stand a little longer, at least two weeks.