At Coloríginz we offer a wide assortment with the most gorgeous flowers, roses and foliage. Each and every one of these products comes from our wonderful partners, who are located all over the world. In our ‘Hello…’ series, we sit down with our partners and talk about their business, products and how they started out in the industry.  In this Hello... we spoke with Ron van Oosten, Co-owner of ‘Kwekerij Zijdezicht’ with several branches in the Netherlands. Kwekerij Zijdezicht is market leader in Asters.

“I'm from a long line of breeders, my dad owned his own nursery as well. Like so many growers, he once started with vegetables, at some point he also grew Lilies and Carnations, eventually he settled on Chrysanthemums. He was always on the lookout for the next big thing: what product brings the nursery to the next level? When I was about 18 years old, I was working at another nursery that just started to grow the Aster ‘Monte Cassino’. This turned out to be booming business. So much so, that the nursery couldn’t keep up with the demand. My father instantly saw the value of the Aster ‘Monte Cassino’ and bought some cuttings. From that moment he started growing Asters, in addition to Chrysanthemums he was already growing. Eventually I returned to the nursery of my father and it snowballed from there. We grew so fast that my father’s nursery was no longer big enough for our crops, so we ended up buying even more land. 
 

‘Kwekerij Zijdezicht’

Around the year 2000, the nursery took was ready for next step. I had taken over my father’s nursery, but the municipality of ‘Den Hoorn’ decided to put a water purification plant on my ground. I had 15 thousand square meters at that point, but I had to move. This caused me to seriously think about the future. I wondered if this business is something that I wanted to continue running and if yes: do I want to run it by myself?

To clear my mind, I decided to follow a course and in class where several other growers. I decided then and there that I did want to continue in the business, but not by myself.  One of my classmates was my complete opposite. I thought to myself, we could crash and burn but we can also reinforce each other because we are so different. We sat down and talked to see if we had the same ideals. Thankfully, this turned out to be the case. We made a plan for the future and continued on together.  

The company is split 50/50 between me and my partner, John Krijger and myself. The nursery was given a new name: ‘Kwekerij Zijdezicht’. We now have three locations: two in de Lier and a location in s’ Gravenzande. We grow Chrysanthemums all year round and during the summer we grow Asters at two locations. 

At the location in de Lier we are currently going from 29.000 square meters to 32.000 square meters. With this expansion, we are also optimizing and automating the workflow. In the old situation this wasn’t possible because there was a part of the nursery that was simply too old in order to be efficient.  Due to the renovation we can automate the nursery and produce more branches and save money in other areas.  


 

Growing Asters

The mother plants of our Asters are grown in Sri-Lanka. When the mother plant has fully developed, they are cut. The cuttings are send to a breeding company in the Netherlands where they take root. After a while the rooted plants are harvested and sent to us. This is quite a long process and we have to order Aster cuttings a year in advance. 

As soon as the rooted plants come into our nursery, we take out the head and the Aster plants start to form shoots in the earth.  After 11 weeks the plants are fully grown and we can start harvesting the Asters. The entire cultivation in our nursery takes about eleven weeks.  Because the variety we grow needs on a lot of light, we only grow asters during the summertime. During the Dutch winters there is simply not enough natural light. You can of course solve that with installing extra lights in the nursery, but that is not very cost efficient of course. 

After they are harvested, we bunch the Asters and put a plastic cover around them. Now they are finally ready to be sold to our customers! This is where Coloríginz comes into play. The best thing that can happen is that even before the asters leave our nursery, they are already for sale at the Coloríginz webshop.  Coloríginz is also my depot in Aalsmeer so to speak, and they provide me with the contacts and information. I sometimes get a question from Coloríginz, sometimes they have some information for me. We help each other out; we are stronger together.
 

New varieties 

We currently have a couple of aster-experiments growing in our nursery. We are looking for a new dark blue variety for example. It is possible you will find some new varieties in the Coloríginz assortment in the future! 

Go to the current aster selection, by clicking here.