Our story

The man behind the flowers

My childhood passed in one of Hungary's wildest landscapes, Őrség. I am one of the last to have seen and lived that true experience of peace in which man and nature lived side by side and for each other in the deepest mutual respect. We protected nature, or at the very least we did not disturb it. In return, we could live and work in it. We worked the land, we raised animals. Nature gave us everything we needed for our daily lives. Community experiences, work, and food on the table. All it took was a responsible awareness that the forest is home to thousands of creatures, not just firewood, the meadow is a nursery for native wildflowers, not just land to be built on, and the stream is a food source for wetland species, herons, otters, kingfishers, not just water that provides fish for us and us only. This is how we, children and adults, lived in harmony with nature.

This loyalty to nature and the preservation of the wildlife in it has not faded after decades. Pets, hedgehogs, bluetits and swallows, ornamental trees and orchards, flower gardens have always remained part of the family.

In 2018 I acquired my first two bonsai trees. A Ficus Microcarpa and a Ficus Ginseng, which I soon realised required far more attention than simple houseplants. I loved taking care of them, learning to transplant, prune, wire, keep them healthy.

These were followed by a Gardenia Jasminoides (Gardenia) bonsai, then a Metasequoia Glyptostroboides (Chinese Mammoth Pine), and my fifth bonsai tree was a Bougainvillea Glabra.

It was then, in the spring of 2018, that I held a bougainvillea in my hands for the first time, even if it was a bonsai. Knowing that all bonsai are scaled-down copies of their natural counterparts, I started investigating. Not just in Hungary, but internationally too.

After buying a few varieties available in Hungary, I placed my first orders from foreign traders in 2018. I ordered branches, i.e., hardwood stem cuttings. I figured rooting them shouldn't be crazily difficult, if others could do it, so could I. I had never tried rooting before, with any plant, not to mention bougainvillea. During this time, I had more than my fair share of disappointments. After a few orders, and even more failed rooting attempts, I started buying everything that might somehow help the rooting process. Rooting hormone, seedbeds, propagators, propagation sets, humidifiers and UV lights. By the time I'd tried every snake oil and miracle device available, all at exorbitant prices from garden centres, I realised that the simplest and cheapest method was the best. It is not what materials I use, but how I do it. The secret to success is what branch I root, what plant and what part of the plant I cut from, what time of year, what temperature, what light conditions, and what rooting soil I use. This realisation took me half a year and all my savings. Since I was working at the time in Budapest, I tried propagating from cuttings in my flat on the fourth floor in downtown Budapest. Not exactly ideal.

In 2019, I ordered a mix of cuttings and rooted plants. That was the year I became the owner of rare, Far Eastern bougainvillea. Anyone with access to tropical bougainvillea varieties is privileged. There are few foreign sellers who are able and willing to sell good quality plants to other continents, and generally the terms of international parcel delivery are completely unknown to them. Increasingly stringent phytosanitary import regulations, border controls, and the obstacles and delays to shipments have made every foreign order a lottery. Bougainvillea does not take well to transport over several weeks. The branches I ordered usually arrived mouldy due to slow postal delivery. Some of the rooted plants died in transit due to careless packaging by the sender. As anyone who has tried it knows, it is not uncommon for a plant ordered as a rooted plant to arrive without roots. Anyone ordering plants from the Far East is at the mercy of the seller. The best recipe is to find a consignor and cross your fingers.

You have to trust that they will send the variety you asked for, they will pack it carefully and correctly, and that the package will arrive in time for the plants to survive. And don't expect to get your money back if you have any complaints, it’s not like you can hop over to the islands in the South China Sea to voice your complaint. Others may have given up at this point, but I decided to become a bougainvillea collector. From autumn to spring, 15 square metres of the 32 square metres of my fourth-floor apartment were dedicated to my hobby. With artificial lighting, carnivorous plants, insect-catching yellow strips, and finally a handheld vacuum cleaner, I kept my plants alive against the grey winter and the fungus gnats. Joy of joys! I had grown live bougainvillea, and not just any old bougainvillea.

In the spring of 2020, Covid slammed the door in my face. As they say, when one door closes, another opens. The intermittent absence of my regular job allowed me to spend more time with plants and live my life more freely. So, I took them and moved them to the countryside. In 2020, I had a collection of nearly 100 bougainvillea varieties. It was also the year of my first major investment. I had my first steel-framed greenhouse built, which is more at a hobby level than agricultural in terms of floor space, but it was big enough to house my plants, and the wind didn't blow it away. However, it was not yet suitable for wintering because there was no heating. The inside of my house served that purpose, so me and my family lived through the winter with 150 pots of Mediterranean plants.

By the winter of 2021, my greenhouse was heated. At that time, I had around 200 bougainvillea varieties, of which I can proudly say that about 80-100 were rare and not readily available in Europe.

I am so thankful I can do what I love. I am rich because I am making memories. I am proud because I create something. I'm happy because I'm working for the things that make childhood great: preserving the relationship between man and nature.

I am originally an event organiser with a degree in economics. If you like my story, check out my webshop.

Krisztián