As a child I recall watching my Aunt create beautiful orchid corsages for family events. I always hoped to be able to someday be able to create corsages like hers. Any time my Mother or my Aunt would bring home artificial floral designs, I would study them, and learn how they were assembled. As a fourth grader, only 12 years old, my science project was to collect seeds and categorize them by the different types. Upon completion of the project I planted them and watched them grow and develop into blooming plants. This nurtured my love for flowers and designing, as I learned to recreate those silk floral designs, I began bringing fresh floral designs to school during my middle school years and competed my first floral design competition the summer just before entering high school. During high school, I continued to bring designs to decorate the school library and chapel. I also made all the corsages and boutonnieres for friends attending prom. In college, I became an active member of the Student Chapter of The American Institute of Floral Design (SAIFD) and went to my first AIFD Symposium in 1992. I continued to participate in competitions both in school and at the county fair while in college. I applied for membership to AIFD when I was 25, and became an accredited member of AIFD in 1998, just after receiving my Bachelors’ of Science Degree in Environmental Horticulture.

I was born and raised in San Francisco. Both my Maternal and Paternal grandfathers shared my love for plants and flowers. Hoy Yuen Lum came from China circa 1879, to Hawaii, to work at Sandal Fragrance Hills Plantation, and upon the completion of his contract he and his family settled in Honolulu, Hawaii.

My passion for floral design has led me to work in a variety of areas of the floral industry. Since 1984, I have had the pleasure to work in a vast variety of flower outlets. Some of those outlets have been, a retail flower shop, a retail garden center, as a freelance designer, in a wholesale florist and floral supply warehouse, as well as for the USDA as an APHIS Agriculture Plant and Flower inspector at the San Francisco International Airport.

Since becoming an AIFD Certified Floral Judge in 2016, I have had the opportunity to judge several design competitions as well as to serve as an Evaluator for the Professional Floral Designer aptitude test, for those designers applying for membership, at the annual AIFD National Symposium.

In an effort to help with floral needs throughout the community, I donate my time to the SF Recreation and Parks Department and the Chinatown Rotary Club. I also serve as the Vice President to the Floral Artists of the Bay Area, and help provide quality design programs throughout the year.