With a love for all things that bloom, her ambition is to brighten up the Cambodian landscape with the sometimes delicate, occasionally bold colours of a floral tribute to her ambition. She would like to see the Kingdom become a garden of riotous colour, but for now her sights are set on the small matter of establishing a self-sufficient flower industry in her adopted country. 

And don’t be suckered into believing this is an overgrown cottage industry. Floral imports into the country from neighbouring Vietnam and Thailand, mainly for Cambodia’s hotel and leisure market, but also the burgeoning wedding industry, estimated to be worth about $30m a year.

Behind her good-natured banter and the top dressing of a quick wit and lively anecdotes is a determination to develop the domestic flower industry into a market leader. Lueckenhausen’s dream is to create a from-the-ground-up business driven by a symbiotic combination of horticultural best practice, an eye for natural beauty and the tantalisingly sweet smell of success. The result is Oliver’s Garden – named after her cat Oliver – which was established near Kirirom national park, a two-hour drive from Phnom Penh, in 2008. 

Her background in business management and more recently in heavy engineering could hardly be more different to the nurturing of flowers. She is the general manager of Functional Engineering, a leading supplier of chemical, equipment and manpower to the oil and gas industry that was founded by her German husband, who died in 2001. She moved to Cambodia from Brunei in late 2006 to expand operations. Her nose for money and making it, however, quickly sniffed out an opportunity in a business currently dominated by Thailand and Vietnam. 

“If those two countries can grow and export flowers, there is no reason why Cambodia can’t,” she says. “The soil quality at the farm is generally very good and it can sustain a great variety of flowers and plants.”

Pragmatic to a fault, though, Lueckenhausen is the first to admit that her love for gardening is not supported by technical know-how, so in 2008 she enlisted two friends she met while living in Brunei. Cris Aninao, 53, and Valentina Lo, 57, are landscape gardeners and have spent the past 30 years working their way around gardens in Europe, North America and Asia. Lo is Bruneian-born and bred while Aninao moved to Brunei from the Philippines to help Lo run the successful Ken Florist and Nursery. Currently, they jet back and forth between Brunei and Cambodia but are spending an increasing amount of time at Oliver’s Garden. 

Spread over five hectares of undulating land, the farm is powered by two generators as the area is not connected to the grid has more the air of a manicured English garden than a commercial enterprise. Nonetheless, it offers a pleasing balance of the aesthetic beauty of flowers and plants of all colours, shapes and sizes such as guzmania, ckalanchoe, ixoras and bougainvilleas with an order more reminiscent of a lovingly tended market garden. It is very different from the polytunnel extremes of the large-scale plantings of neighbouring countries. 

Looking out from the patio over a quiet setting, home to colourful butterflies and the sounds of birds such as the brown hornbill, you’d be forgiven for thinking you were in a showroom feature for Homes and Gardens magazine. But creating a serene environment is an important part of Lueckenhausen’s plan. “Flowers give people sanity,” she says. 

A gravel path snakes its way around the house, past a 20-metre deep well they dug, passes the workers’ quarters and continues downhill to a small creek that cuts through the farm. Showcasing the horticultural talents of its green-fingered trio, Oliver’s Garden features layouts modelled on Balinese and Japanese gardens that will be created by Aninao and Lo, who are keen to demonstrate their landscaping skills and creativity. 

It’s an integral part of the business, because the couple is training four of their 20 Khmer staff to master the form, shape and colour of Lueckenhausen’s dream to establish her business as the landscaper of choice for Cambodia’s elite. And they recently scored their first commission to develop the gardens of a newly opened eye hospital in Takeo. 

She is also introducing specifically Cambodian flower, shrub and tree species, including the “Infidelity Tree”, a spiky and aggressive monster supported by local legends that suggest errant husbands were forced in their afterlife to climb the tree as a punishment. The tree remains a reminder of the price of infidelity. Nearby, a decaying tree trunk acts as an attractive flower bed – another example of how Aninao and Lo have incorporated parts of the now cleared bush into their landscape design. 

As with any start-up business, the first couple of years is a critical test of the trio’s skills at growing not only their product but also advertising and marketing it to the outside world. As an example of their drive to succeed, they are hoping to satisfy the international flower-buying market with a heliconia that will thrive in zero-degree temperatures for up to one month. They expect to sell it to Thai distributors for local customers as well as the Netherlands-based Aaalsmer Flower Auction – the world’s largest that sells about 20m flowers a day and has an annual turnover of $2 billion. 

Trailblazers in the Cambodian flower export industry, Lueckenhausen says it hasn’t all been easy. Based in Phnom Penh, she is the one who deals with the paperwork and all things legal. She says the process of applying for appropriate licences was time-consuming. As the first to set up a flower farm for export, there was no licence available for her to apply for. But after months of talks with the ministry of commerce she was granted two permits, one to plant and grow, and another to export.

Poor infrastructure links such as bumpy roads and little access to international flights remains a problem that currently limits trading potential. Once flowers are cut, they need to get to Thailand within a day, where they are repacked and sent to Holland – if they are not sold to the local Thai market. In a country with few small-scale flower farms, finding skilled gardeners with a natural feel for horticulture in Kirirom has also been difficult. But with time, Aninao has identified an enthusiastic few who are now being trained as Cambodia’s new generation of landscapers and gardeners.

After a tough 18 months, there is still a lot to do. Less than one hectare is under cultivation and there’s much head scratching as to why certain seeds are not germinating and some flowers are withering. The perfect balance of soil, compost, air and water for healthy growth has yet to be found. 

Gardens are a living entity that bring colour, variety and fragrance as well as attracting butterflies and other pollinating insects to perpetuate the life cycle. Quality is the first goal at Oliver’s Garden, but for this ambitious woman, quantity is what will make it all worthwhile.

A FLOWER FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

Noun Leakhena, owner of the Fresh Flowers Shop in Phnom Penh, is happy she can make a living selling something as beautiful as flowers. She earns up to $150 on average a month, but the best time for business is during Khmer New Year, Chinese New Year, Buddhist festivals and St Valentine’s day. Most of the ten kinds of flowers she sells are imported from Thailand and Vietnam – though she buys them from middlemen at Dumex market in the capital. The most sought after flowers are roses, lillies,  lotuses and orchids.

While she is happy with the selection of flowers coming through from neighbouring countries, she would like to see Cambodia supply its own markets. “We spend a lot importing flowers from Thailand and Vietnam, it would be good to have horticultural expertise available here to be able to keep the money in Cambodia,” says the 25-year-old.

The lotus is widely used for Buddhist ceremonies	Orchids are one of the country’s most popular flowers
Red roses for lovers and national events	Chrysanthemums are used for both funerals and weddings