At the tender age of eight, Peter van der Meij (Valkenburg, 1976) could be heard shouting at his father's flower stall, “You'll find the most beautiful tulips and gladioli here!” When the owner of Pure Flowers utters that same phrase now, forty years seem to melt away and we catch a glimpse of that little boy. "I did that on Saturdays until I was 14," he says. Co-owner Annemieke Noort (Katwijk, 1979) and creative mainstay Annemarijn Bleichrodt laughingly attest, "He hasn’t lost any of that youthful enthusiasm."

The magical touch of Van der Meij and his Pure Flowers is not only known in the Hague and surrounding area, but also as far as India, Morocco, Congo and Greece. With a dedicated team of 14 men and women, he has been adding beauty at the very best, pioneering global events since 2019. Time and again, he adds groundbreaking paradisiacal concepts to his work, under the motto he was brought up on: “To never take no for an answer.”

Pure Flowers has an enchanting shop at Van Hoytemastraat 36 and a fairytale kiosk on Frederik Hendriklaan (opposite no. 152). The cheerful energy with which Van der Meij, Noort and Bleichrodt talk about the business this afternoon does not betray the early hour they started their day at. Van der Meij says, "I got up at 4:30 am. I'm used to working 90-hour weeks; my father's brothers were all gardeners and growers." Horticultural secondary school did not appeal to him much. "I preferred to be around flowers. When I was 17, I wound up working on a delivery truck that also sold flowers to shops in Germany." Van der Meij senior was not keen on his young son being on the road in busy international traffic. "He found a nice shop for me in Noordwijk and that's how I started my own place at 17."

The fairy shop at 36 Van Hoytemastraat.

Own vision

After three years, he had outgrown the florist’s. The pedigree florist wanted more, and Van der Meij became a buyer at the flower auction in Aalsmeer. And he learned about the global flower market at a subsequent company. "If something was no longer available in the Netherlands, I found it elsewhere in the world. In 12 1/2 years, I built a unique market position in flowers." His specific personal vision developed, and he acquired in-depth knowledge of the what, where and how of top quality. "At 35, I started for myself again to translate all the experience I had gained into an exclusive selection of my own," he says. Essentially, Van der Meij aimed to add a new dimension to the concept of flowers through delicately subtle to distinctly opulent creations.

Pure Flowers is also known for its colourful ceramics.

His vision caught on and how! The five stalls he developed, including at the Albert Cuyp Market and his showpiece at Janskerkhof Flower Market in Utrecht, flourished. Noort says with justifiable pride: "People came from far and wide, our turnover multiplied in no time, and we became a household name in Utrecht and surrounding area. And then Peter heard there was a stall for sale on a street in a pleasant area of The Hague: The Fred."

24/7

Van der Meij: "That Sunday morning, we immediately went to have a look: what a nice atmosphere in that street. We were instantly sold and in December 2014 we opened our kiosk on Frederik Hendriklaan." The kiosk would prove to be a bridgehead to the Van Hoytemastraat in 2019 and to what Pure Flowers put on the map as an international event supplier with exclusive and innovative floral arrangements in the meantime. Bleichrodt: "At the beginning of 2015, Peter and Annemieke acquired the exclusive contract for the Kurhaus. The 24/7 that the owner stipulated was actually 24/7," she smiles. "In the middle of the night within an hour, two hundred red roses? Dress up big gala dinners last minute with metre-high floral creations? No problem. Big names like Des Indes, Leonardo, Hilton followed." Bleichrodt is from Dordrecht, where they have the same 'yes we can' mentality as in the Bulb Region where Van der Meij and Noort are from.

Bleichrodt continues modestly about when she started at Pure Flowers, "I joined in 2015; I feel right at home here. All three of us love challenges." Noort adds, "Annemarijn is the creative right-hand. She and Peter have made this company and our major international assignments —with sometimes extravagant and seemingly unfeasible wish lists— a reality. In India, she had to operate on her own for two days when Peter's visa was delayed. For the grand wedding celebration of the sister of Anant Ambani (Indian billionaire family, ed.), they had to erect a 'Garden of Eden' measuring 35 x 35 metres. It was to be filled with tree roses and created with Indian flower arrangers who had never made anything like that before. Peter and Annemarijn turned our wildest dreams into concrete results."

Acing it

The design, sourcing, creation and decoration for the many beach parties at Zwarte Pad in Scheveningen and for all major international operations take place at the Pure Flowers studio in Rijnsburg.

The two ladies explain that it has all developed “Peter’s way”. Noort: "Indirectly, we came into contact with the Israeli client for said Ambani wedding, and Peter and Marijn managed to win the order for the entire floral decoration. That was followed by a party in Congo for which we needed all four flights scheduled in the one week to transport the flowers we needed for nine parties in different colours.

In logistical terms, we aced it. We went there with a specially compiled team of 25 Dutch flower arrangers. In Marrakesh (Morocco), we were able to let our imagination run wild." Smiling, Peter van der Meij pulls out his phone and shows us an enchanting video of an immense party on the Greek Côte d'Azur: Porto Heli and Spetses. He points, "That eight-metre-high flower arch alone contained 30,000 flowers. An 80-person band played on the ship we decorated." All the beauty bears his signature. "Once I have meticulously sketched a design, I confidently leave it in the competent hands of these two ladies and start on the next thing. New ideas pop up all the time." This Christmas, for instance, Pure Flowers will be decorating Hotel Okura in Amsterdam, among others. Noort and Bleichrodt chuckle and proudly say, "Yep, that's our little flower shop."

www.pure-flowers.nl