Our Story

Eighteen years on Karaliaus Mindaugo prospect.

— Asta Aleknavičienė, founder

When Akropolis Kaunas opened its doors in 2007, Orchidė opened with it — a small, family flower shop on the ground floor, run by a woman who had taken up floristry the way other people take up a calling.

That woman is Asta Aleknavičienė. She began Orchidė as a passion project — taught herself the craft, travelled across Europe to learn from the best, and has run the salon with her own hands ever since. Nearly two decades later, she still picks every single flower that comes into the shop herself.

Sourced personally, every stem.

Asta's standards are uncompromising and so are her relationships. The flowers in our bouquets come primarily from the great Dutch growers — partners she has personally visited, greenhouses she has walked through, hands she has shaken. When the season allows, we add Lithuanian-grown stems and, occasionally, blooms from Asta's own garden.

Every year she travels — to IPM Essen in Germany, the largest horticulture trade fair in Europe; to Christmasworld in Frankfurt, where the next season's decorative styles take shape; to the FlowerTrials in the Netherlands, where new varieties make their debut; and to Royal FloraHolland's auction in Aalsmeer, the beating heart of the European flower trade. She returns from each trip with notebooks of ideas, samples, and the kinds of conversations you can only have face-to-face.

Small on purpose.

Orchidė is small on purpose. There is no team of designers, no offshore production, no template. Every arrangement that leaves the salon is built by Asta and her hand-picked florists, with the same care she would give a bouquet for her own kitchen table. The shop has stayed small not because it had to, but because that is how it can stay good.

If you have walked past Orchidė at Akropolis on a quiet Tuesday and seen Asta at the bench, sorting through a delivery of peonies — that is the whole business, exactly as it has always been.