Thailand has always been known for its very rich flora with many, many beautiful flowers. But there are only very few specialties flower shops. Therefore, you have the fantastic Pak Khlong Talat, a huge flower market, not far from the river Chao Phraya/Bangkok.
If you live around Asoke or Satorn, etc., it’s a bit far to visit the flower market if you just intend to buy a bouquet to take with you to the host/hostess of your dinner invitation. You need time to explore the Pak Khlong Talat.
As far as I know, there is only one flower shop on Sukhumvit Road, if you don’t count the outside booth by Villa Market (soi 33) and the very small booth in Emporium or Exchange Tower.
Today, after 17 years in Bangkok, I had the pleasure to meet the Swede Johannes Bergström, and found in him a genuinely passionate flower man, owner of the unique company URBANFLOWERS.
This is the man who once started as an actor in Sweden and New York, but changed direction completely. Johannes has lived in Thailand for 17 years. During these years he founded “The Bangkok Condo Finder” and was also co founder of “Dinner In The Sky Thailand” that was located where Emsphere with the latest IKEA is today located.
Johannes is married with a woman from the neighbor country Laos and the couple has a 10 years old son.
Johannes was born in Halmstad, southern Sweden, moved to Malmö later on to study and start acting. During the 90’s, he went to Thailand backpacking and felt at home. His mum was also travelling to Thailand later on and sent him an invitation to join her, which he of course could not resist. His late father lived here for years, so Johannes have had and still has, a strong connection with the Land of Smiles.
“Thailand has for years been kind of my second home,” he explains.
It’s a big jump from having been an actor to become the owner of a flower company. “Yes, correct, I had not much knowledge about flowers before I started the URBANFLOWERS in Bangkok,” he says with a smile. Today he is a master and can explain about and remember the names of most flowers. Among his favorite flowers are the Anemones, especially the white ones with a purple touch inside, as well as the Bethlehem, a very small white flower with a blue center, he tells me.
“I noticed when people ordered flowers from other flower shops, that they seldom arrived on time and always were delivered in boring boxes, and I thought it would be a good idea to change that.”
In October 2022 he founded his company URBANFLOWERS and in the company you today have an extraordinary team, a team that really thinks out of the box.
“It was quite hard in the beginning to find the right staff; experienced florists were extremely difficult to find. Today I am lucky to work with some excellent florists with lots of fantasy and a skill to create the most unusual and beautiful flower arrangements.
The company consists of 1 driver, 3 florists, 1 operation manager, 1 assistant operation manager, 1 person in the accounting, and 1 person who looks into other suitable companies to cooperate with, eg., bakeries, box manufacturers, card producers, etc.
“We are always looking for new ideas, the time has passed when you just sent a flower bouquet with a simple card. Today we offer arrangements in imaginative boxes, in vases with a Scandinavian touch, and a new offering will be our release of a video, explaining how you can add a card with a personal note that you scan with a QR code, just to mention a few of our offers.”
URBANFLOWERS has a very advanced website and right now the company is creating a “gifting page” to offer not only flowers and plants, but also candles, sweets, cakes and much more. “The range of gifting is not very huge on internet, so here we will try to take the lead. It’s also most important for us to be able to deliver on time and also make it possible to do “last minute deliveries”, Johannes says. You can call the company until 1 am in the night to place your order, quite an exceptional offer.
“We have, almost since the start, had subscription deliveries to companies, embassies, restaurants, hotels etc. We are working on reaching out to as many companies etc. as possible”.
“It’s easy to become happy when you receive a beautiful flower bouquet that also includes a voucher for a Spa treatment, concert tickets, an invitation to a wine or whisky tasting e.g. This is what I call “thinking out of the box”, a new, more exciting way of receiving your flowers.”
After having talked to Johannes for a while, I realized that he is a man who truly wants us to have something extra and wanting to make everything possible, even the most impossible things.
It’s worth mentioning that Johannes has done the whole design for the URBANFLOWERS’ webpage, since he has a long experience in this field and has helped many people to create eye catching webpages. He says that it is difficult to make a home page that really works for Google.
Johannes is a young man who stands for tradition. He explains how he grew up with a mum who made fantastic Christmas buffets and decorated traditionally. He has followed in her footsteps. The most wonderful Christmas wreaths are in producing now. I was surprised, I didn’t see many orchids in the cool room and Johannes said, orchids are mostly used for wedding bouquets.
I was happy to see tulips in several colors, a flower that most Scandinavians love and you don’t find many in Thailand.
When you take a look at the flower bouquets you just want to take them all home. There are fun, exciting names for all bouquets. Today’s bestsellers are “Burning love” and “Girl on Fire”.
Johannes went through many flower webpages in the US and found out that the most popular arrangements in the US very often were flowers in orange and red colors. He was warned that these colors might not be the taste of the Thai people, but it seemed to be totally wrong, today they are the number one, even in Thailand.
The bouquets can be ordered in small, medium and large sizes, and you get a real surprise when you see the prices, they are very moderate. You will also be offered 15-20 % off larger bouquets.
Most flowers are ordered online, but you are welcome to visit URBANFLOWERS at Taka Town on Sukhumvit Soi 39. It is a pleasure to step inside and feel the fragrance of all flowers and watch the florists tie bouquets with a skillful hand.
Believe me, it’s well worth a visit.
