Before his emergence on the scene as a partner in plant propagating company Vitro Westland, the selection of perennials available to gardeners was limited to commonly grown varieties that had been around for a long time. Gert’s interest and expertise in reproducing plants by tissue culture made it possible to quickly build stocks of new varieties and so offer gardening enthusiasts a choice as never witnessed before.

Today, tissue culture is a popular method of reproducing perennials with Gert responsible for realising its potential on a commercial scale.

Gert van Eijk-Bos always had a fascination for plant breeding. At the age of 12 he was crossing Violas and Carnations, a diversion from the family cattle farming business. The interest wasn’t a passing phase, so Gert went on to study horticulture and plant breeding at Holland’s celebrated University of Wageningen.

Here, he was lucky enough to be one of the first pupils to fall under the wing of renowned horticulturist Professor Pierik, a worldwide authority on tissue culture propagation, who was responsible for introducing courses on the subject at the university. Up till this point, tissue culture was a subject known to few people, but for Gert van Eijk-Bos the timing couldn’t have been better. He took to the course like the proverbial duck to water, and two years before his graduation in 1976 caught the attention of the two brothers van Eiven who were later to form one of the world’s leading tissue culture laboratories, ‘Vitro Westland’.

Using the downstairs rooms of a house near Delft, Gert and his new colleagues set to work propagating Gerberas. Their venture was a success, and so in 1986 the company Vitro Westland was formed, providing the perfect vehicle for Gert van Eijk-Bos to practice his skills both in plant propagation and breeding.