Success story of dried flower business

Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Malang, East Java

They are a different kind of flower, but no less beautiful. What's more, they last a lot longer that the usual floral decorations.

They are dried flower bouquets, created and arranged by Rien Samudayati, and displayed along with other handicrafts at her showroom, Rien's Craft, in Malang, East Java.

Upon closer examination, though, one can see that these floral bouquets are not entirely made from real flowers. Instead they are made from a combination of corn skin, palm leaves, corn seeds and home-made dried flowers and grasses.

"Indonesia is not an ideal place for real dried flowers, the damp climate makes them get moldy and mildewy too easily," Rien said in an interview recently.

Of the many varieties of flowers grown in the country, only about 10 percent are able to be processed into dried flowers for bouquets, she said, adding that it was difficult for even these 10 percent to retain their original coloring.

"It is easier to dry Indonesian wild flowers and grasses, but they, too, often lose their color," Rien said.

The architecture graduate, who has been making dried-flower arrangements since 1981, said she first started the business after her husband bought her books on dried flowers during a trip to the Netherlands -- the world's largest producer of flowers.

"I hail from Jakarta. I found Malang was too quiet. My husband bought me the books so that I would have something to occupy my time," she recalled.

Furthermore, her habit of collecting bits of leaves, flowers and grasses during trips with her agriculture-lecturer husband to plantations and fields has enriched her knowledge of flowers and resulted in various unique bouquets.

At her showroom, which doubles as a workshop, dried flowers are suspended from the ceiling and the corners are decorated with artistic grasses.

At first the bouquets were just a hobby, but word soon spread and orders for wreaths and dried-floral bouquets for weddings and commemorations poured in.

However, as a business, dried-flower bouquets by themselves were unable to bring in the kind of profit worthy of such a complicated art.

"It's just too complicated. Besides creating every individual flower, I have to arrange the bouquets myself so that each one is different from the others. I cannot just make a sample for my workers to copy," Rien said, adding that it didn't take long for her to be overwhelmed with orders.

Her shift to natural handicrafts began some nine or 10 years ago, to supplement the dried-flower bouquets.

"I still do bouquets, but for special orders only, and my products now are these handicrafts," Rien said gesturing to an assortment of pencil cases, photo and mirror frames, and tissue holders.

Every item was made from some sort of item from nature. For example, the pencil cases and tissue holders are decorated with colored seeds and small dried flowers and leaves, and the mirror frames are made from the skin of the petai cina.

However, even though her products have found their way to Bali, Jakarta, Surabaya and as far away as Singapore and Malaysia, Rien never takes orders that are too large.

"I only take orders that I can handle with my 15 workers, and I never want to bother with shipping my exported products," she said, adding that she leaves the shipment to the buyer so that she is not hassled by all the red tape and quality control.

"What I do is not purely a business, it's my hobby," Rien said.