Welcome to my Bloom Blog!
My name is Ayiana which is Native American for ‘Eternal Bloom’.
In short, I come from a diverse family that has origins in Africa, Europe, America, and Asia. Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my extended families and learned about their roots and their ways of life. I appreciated the stories they shared from our ancestry origins to our recent history of family migration to the United States. The challenges they faced were very real and something that people around the world face every day.
The reason I’m starting this post with family and history is because I believe it’s important to learn and understand how I ended up where I am today. I encourage everyone to dig a little deeper to understand where they came from because it influences much of who you are as an individual.
I learned everything that I am passionate about today from my experiences spending time with family as a child. I spent many summers with my Filipino grandparents in Virginia Beach and that’s where I grew and found my love for nature and realized its’ eternal beauty.
My late grandfather, Jose Bautista, immigrated to the United States from the Philippines where he was a rice farmer and mango plantation owner. He brought much of his agricultural knowledge to the States and I learned about his story as I watched him turn his yard into what I liked to call a botanical garden. He spent almost all of his time caring for his plants and his dedication inspired me as I saw it as an art form and a very therapeutic one at that!
I spent many summers with my grandparents and helped them in their garden. They grew tropical fruits and vegetables like persimmons, Asian pears, and long beans to name a few. I enjoyed being surrounded by lush plants and helping with their care. I found peace in the garden and it was a place of comfort for me as I learned about what they needed to grow and thrive. My favorite part was harvesting, especially the persimmons as I enjoyed the mild sweetness they provide. The summers I spent at my grandparents were fruitful and led me on a path of discovering my love for plants.
As I grew older, I was active in environmental preservation efforts through high school. I learned the importance of giving back to our natural environment as it would do the same for us. We are not alone in this world as we share it with a diverse array of flora and fauna who wish to live in a healthy and peaceful environment the same as we do.
After high school, I pursued a degree in Agricultural Science and minored in Horticulture at Penn State. My time at the University further developed my interests and passions as I was able to work in both the research and production side of agriculture. I learned about and implemented sustainable management practices in my work as an intern for the Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross’ Student Farm at Penn State. The work was hard but the results were priceless as we had a successful CSA program and were given many opportunities to educate the community on sustainability in agriculture.
I also enjoyed taking horticulture classes as I was able to get a deeper understanding of the unique needs and differences of the individual plant. One of my last horticulture classes was flower crop production. It consisted of a semester-long project to produce 300 plants of mostly floral crops. It was the most fun I’ve had in a long time! I never knew how fulfilling it was to work with flowers but the time and effort it took to grow all of the plants were outweighed by the benefits the flowers provided. I was in awe of how beautifully unique each and every flower was and that’s when I realized that I wanted to take this niche passion a step further.
Bloom Eternally is a place I envisioned to not only grow beautiful flowers but to make them last forever in time. Flowers have many meanings and symbolize many aspects and characteristics of life like strength, grace, prosperity, beauty, peace, and so forth. Preserved flowers can brighten any space and add another level of aesthetic that serves to uplift and bring joy to those who view it. To put these blooms into pieces of art that can last until the end of time is my dream that I hope to share with all of you!
Below are some of the flowers I grew in the greenhouses at Penn State!
