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After years of experience in the market gardening sector, in May 2021 Helena Grootscholten took the plunge and started running her own nursery. This year, her List Flor nursery in Harmelen has started selling her Helleborus cut flowers for the first time via the auction clock while using Floriday: “It’s a new process for me but it’s going extremely well.”
Helena has been very busy. “We are now auctioning off the final products that we have been harvesting since January. Soon it will again be time to let the new shoots grow until October.” Although Helena has had good sales in recent weeks, she doesn’t have any regular buyers and doesn’t sell directly either: “We only supply for auction clock sales.”
Working simply and logically
In October 2021, Helena registered List Flor with Royal FloraHolland and Floriday so that she could start supplying to the auction in January. “A stressful time, because everything has to be just so. However, when a Floriday expert visited me to help me find our optimum platform set-up, it was a real weight off my shoulders. I can now work with it myself and don’t want to use anything else. I use Floriday to draft the auction forms, customise the photos and update the information. Working in the platform is very simple and logical.”
Experienced in floriculture
When Helena emigrated to the Netherlands from the Czech Republic in 1996, it didn’t take her long to become involved with the floriculture sector. She was working long hours in her then husband’s nursery. Eleven years ago, she decided to unite the past with the present and set up her own sales company. The company works closely with a major exporter, supplying house plants, bedding plants, garden plants and tree nursery products to buyers in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. “I have now gained a lot of experience in this field and have close relationships with the buyers, also due to our common origin. It was during this work that I heard about Floriday from other growers as well.”
An unexpected turn of events
Helena did not always intend to run a nursery. “My neighbour moved away last year and I wanted to buy his house. When I saw the nursery next to the house, I realised that this could be a great opportunity to get to know the sector in another way, by working with my own products. It’s an opportunity I seized. So now I live next to my own nursery.” Since then it’s all been full steam ahead, with Helena having to go through the gears quickly. “It’s taken significant investment to spruce it all up again but it’s been worth it.”
Reinventing the wheel
Helena had to invest time in working with Floriday initially, but now she doesn’t have to spend much time on it. “This platform offers you many opportunities and is linked to Royal FloraHolland, which is why I decided to register for it at the time. It also meant I didn’t need to know all about any other software.” Helena’s tip for all those wanting to - or going to - work with Floriday: “Bring in a Floriday expert to help you. In total i have spent just five hours to get everything right in Floriday. It saves so much time to know early on how to configure it all. You really don’t need to reinvent the wheel yourself. So I say: ask an expert!”