How I got here and the big move

It's been just over half a year since I moved everything into the new space, and I think it's finally starting to feel like things are settling into their places and we are finding at least some beginning of a rhythm and processes to run the big space. But it's still chaos like 75% of the time. The current space is a bit over 200 square meters and it feels like such a luxury to have all in one place. Which after running between four different rooms in the same hallway trying to remember which one I'd left the scissors in, is something I really appreciate.

How I got here

I really started to get into growing Anthuriums in 2021, when they started to get more available in the EU. At first I started like any rational plant person and slowly covered every surface area that could take a shelf and a grow light in our house with plants. Eventually even the bathroom top shelf had some Anthuriums. I was really experimenting with different types of pots, setups and lights to figure out what would work for me.

My spouse was very understanding of all of it. But eventually there was just no more space to expand into and I had been long dreaming of having a tent, which was just not a possibility in a 36 sqm apartment.

I found an old office building about two blocks from our house that was renting rooms for really cheap, with a good contract and no deposit, and I got 18 square meters for the price of 10. So I decided to move there in May 2023. And I got my first tent, which was 1.2 by 2.4 meters, and it felt huge and so empty at a time.

Having a separate space for plants is so great: you can just leave what ever repotting mess you had going on and go home. There is ofcourse the downside of not really seeing the plants at home, which honestly has resulted in me spending a lot of time at my plant room as I usually call it. Slowly one tent turned into two. At this point I got to finally start my first attempt at hybridizing, which really kick started the need for more space.

At first I rented a second room for a tent for seedlings, a third room in March 2025, a fourth in June 2025. The thing with hybridizing, and especially growing Anthuriums for a size where you can select your next generation plants, is that the space you need grows exponentially. And my driver in loving Anthuriums is seeing the results of hybrids and selectively breeding complex hybrids across generations. So it requires space and so far I’ve just been growing when ever the growth of the shop allowed me to do so.

The move

In the same building there was a big top floor space, that I had been admiring ever since I rented my first room. It was perfect: it had its own utility closet which meant I wouldn’t need to take water and wash pots in the hallway bathrooms, over 200 sqm of space, amazing view and a lot of light.

In September 2025 I decided to reach for that and decided to finally rent the dream space. Getting everything up to the 3rd floor was a huge effort. My whole family helped, my spouse was there on multiple days, and I walked up those stairs hundreds and hundreds of times with trays of plants and equipment. There's an elevator in the building but it's on the completely opposite end, so it would have been more work to get everything out and over to it than to just take the stairs directly.

Right in the middle of all of this I also had a wisdom tooth pulled out, which was not great timing, and as I was home resting I got a call: Hi, this is so-and-so from the police. May I ask, what are you growing in your room?

I was so confused. At first I genuinely thought it was a joke because all my friends had been making the same joke for months. I also have a friend who had just started working at the police and I thought it would have been exactly his kind of humor to get someone to call me like that. But it turned out to be actual police. Apparently someone had reported a suspicious looking set up with tents and lights from the street. So at first the police had been sniffing outside the rooms and checking through the windows, but still wanted to come and have a look. I said of course, I'd much rather sort it out right away.

They said they were going to be undercover cops and in civil clothes. So I had to ask: “I know this might be a stupid quesition, but how will I know you’re actually the police?” They said they'd show a badge when they arrived, and I said fine.

So I showed up to the plant room still looking like a hamster. They showed their badge, had a look around, and asked if they could take a few pictures of the plants. Sure thing. I asked if I could take a picture with them. They said unfortunately no, because they're undercover and can't have their faces shown anywhere. Right, I makes sense. But the whole thing was genuinely so funny, and now my Anthurium operation is officially certified by the police too, which is great.

Six months in

One problem I’ve run into in the new space was ventilation. In the smaller tents I could just open them and that was enough air exchange, but in a three by six meter tent that isn't enough. I started seeing early signs of problems from stagnant air, so I invested a lot more in proper air circulation and ventilation, and now it's almost windy in there. That sorted it out.

Around the move I also decided to take the leap to do this full time. The scale had got to a point where it felt possible (thanks to all of your support!), and honestly I just really wanted to try it out how far I could go with my small plant shop. And quite frankly the workload started to reach a point in which it required a full-time commitment. I feel so motivated to expand and refine the hybridizing operation with all the space and more time to care for the plants and share the journey more! It can also get overwhelming with this many plants, as things are constantly evolving and plants don’t stop growing despite a vacation. Keeping everything moving and controlling the workload at this scale, being responsible for income, while plants are living things and a lot of things could go wrong. But I feel like I'm starting to get to a place where it feels more balanced, and I’m not as afraid of occasionally failing as I learn, so I think it's mostly just about getting used to carrying that responsibility and freedom of choice yourself.

And I still really love it. That part hasn't changed since the bathroom shelving.

Veera