History of Bloom

Julie-Anne Smith Rylev started in Whangarei as a small girl visiting all the flower shops and gathering flowers from her grand mother’s garden, a pure passion at childhood.

After training in Auckland at the age of 15 with Forget Me Not Flowers (now Daphne Studio of Design “The Vox”) Julie-Anne moved onto work and train in Sydney and lived in Indonesia for three years, then returned to New Zealand to pursue her floral career.

Managing Wild Poppies and Flower After Hours for several years she then set out again to travel further abroad and worked with world famous Ken Turner and Caroline Dickinson in London, UK.

Julie-Anne later returned to New Zealand and took possession of the one and only Texas Rose, Auckland, Ponsonby Road.  This move led to her fame in the floral world and greater public exposure.  Texas Rose won “The Auckland Metro Florist of Year award “ 7 years running, this really put Julie-Anne on the map.

After 8 years ownership of Texas Rose she decided to take up her Green Card in America and travel to New York, which led to travel to Europe.  This is where Julie-Anne met up with the love of her life Martin, now her husband and best friend who has played a huge role in the success of Bloom. Martin is a brilliant bass guitar player and can turn his hand to any task set his way. The couple had great success in New York together.

Having had the privilege of managing and running the Jane Packer shop and flower School set in the Conran store on the Upper East Side on Manhattan, Julie also designed and organized for Jane Packer the weekly floral decorations at the Ritz Carlton. They of course miss New York but have chose Whangarei as a place to start there family and now extension of family Bloom.

Bloom also has Deirdre and Carrol, Jules Mum and Aunt of whom have not only brought Jules up but have trained extensively to work and contribute to the Bloom success.

Julie states “We look forward to sharing our knowledge and experiences in our fields and contributing our gifts to the community, we hope Bloom is accepted and enjoyed.”

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