If we go back to my Belgian paternal grandfather named Jules, who loved to get lost in the mystical forests and cultivate his garden after leaving a rich but difficult military life. If we go back to my Franco-Belgian father, an engineer, a modern-day vagabond, fond of traveling to the four corners of the globe, capturing the finest flowers in photos, diving into their universe in macro. Then, in the whisper of the leaves and the scent of the flowers, the legacy of passion and beauty that guides my steps is revealed. There is also the dizzying wall library of this Dad, witness to this lineage that stands as a temple of knowledge, where in the botany section each page opened a window on the world of plants, awakening in me the eternal desire to explore and celebrate nature from a young age. And my arrival in the Antilles, in Guadeloupe, where my heart is set ablaze with a passion for tropical plants that become jewels of my eager soul. Then like a firework igniting the night sky, my love for these exotic flowers takes flight and in the garden of my existence a collection of hoyas awakens, graceful and eternal.

In the setting of this story, silhouettes emerge, weaving a thread of emotions between generations. The wooded paths where Jules got lost still echo with the whispers of the past, as well as the clicks of my father's camera capturing the ephemeral, freezing the flowers in an immortal ballet. And I, echo of their dreams and guardian of their memory, I venture on the paths traced by their steps, carrying within me the breath of adventure and wonder at the splendor of nature. In the meanders of this family history, a delicate loop is formed, starting with Jules, born on February 14, to arrive at a Valentine's Day where I receive a small Hoya kerrii heart as a gift. This is how my love story with hoyas begins. I would never have imagined that this modest green leaf, in the shape of a heart, concealed a treasure of botanical diversity, teeming with hundreds of plants, each as different as the next, with fragrant and shimmering flowers, in the colors of the rainbow.

When you contemplate the flower of a hoya, a true work of plant art, your heart races, eager to see these petals sculpted like wax or porcelain. And the foliage, of remarkable beauty, displays an infinite variety of shape, texture and color. Each specimen of hoya revealing its own curiosity and singularity is a jewel in a green setting. Thus begins my passion and my collection for the world of hoyas, an enchanting universe that transports me to paradise with each floral bloom, with each moment spent pampering my little tropical forest, a living symbol of love and beauty that resonates through the generations of my family. Isabelle Anne BARON