In 1978 my father, Peter Akerboom, began with the cultivation of Asters. This was a small part besides a extensive assortment outside flowers. My father started improving Asters as well. Our well-know variaties are the Casablanca, Painted Lady, Purple Monarch and Paquita. These days Asters have grown to be our speciality. Our varieties are worldwide cultivated in country's like Zimbabwe, Japan, Israël and Columbia.                 Our first Aster productions were sold through Sahin, mostly in foreign countries. After that Lek Anjers has taken care of the sales. In 1997 John Sarneel has ( formally employed at Lek anjers ) in collaboration with Peter Akerboom started the company Astée Flowers. In this way John Sarneel could focus himself to the sales of Asters. Unfortunately Astée Flowers in 2009 went bankrupt. After the bankruptcy there was decided to collaborate with the only other hybridizer in the Netherlands. Because we wanted to be more involved in the sales of the Asters, we started to do this ourselves since the beginning of 2013.           Nachtvlinder BV is a real family business. With my parents Peter en Gerda Akerboom, i (Ellen Akerboom) occupied myself with the improvement ofa diversity of crops. Since 1997 we also started with the improvement of the Helleborus for pots and cut flowers. Except the Helleborus and Aster, also the Eryngium and the Solidago are crops we breed. On our website www.Double-Ellen.nl is more information to be found about our Helleborus types. Besides the breeding we also have our company Zomervlinder. On this location we cultivate over an acre of greenhouse cut Asters, wich are deposited at the flower auction Floraholland.