She followed her new husband, Johannes, to Cupertino and immediately started teaching the Japanese flower-arranging art of ikebana. But at that time, ikebana was a newfangled craft in this area, and her confusing name didn't help matters any. "I had to wear a kimono to impress that I am Japanese," Hoyrup says.

Thirty-five years later, Hoyrup still wears her kimono at ikebana exhibits, though her qualifications are no longer in doubt. As the president of the California chapter of the Wafu School of Ikebana, she oversees more than 200 ikebana enthusiasts in addition to teaching the craft through a number of outlets, including Adult Education in the Fremont Union High School District. On June 12 and 13, Hoyrup oversaw an ikebana exhibition at the Quinlan Center to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the diplomatic relationship between Japan and the United States.

In response, Hoyrup crafted a monstrous piece with more than 46 feet of bamboo timbers. Two timbers began on the same trajectory, then arched away from each other before meeting in an arrangement of red, white and blue flowers to honor the colors in both countries' flags. The design was meant to mirror the tempestuous relationship that the United States and Japan have shared over the past 150 years.

"Ikebana is a re-creation of nature on a smaller scale," Hoyrup says. "There is total harmony between the flowers, the containers and the atmosphere."

She first received training in the traditional ikebana style in Tokyo in 1957, but found herself uninspired. When Hoyrup encountered a flower show at a Tokyo department store that demonstrated the more naturalistic Wafu style, it was love at first sight. She then formally entered into training with one of the headmasters for Wafu, just one of some 3,000 different ikebana styles.

Ikebana demonstrates a philosophy that pinpoints heaven, man and earth as vital elements. Each flower represents one of the three, with the tallest blooms standing in for heaven. Instead of the crowded, straightforward American style of arranging flowers, ikebana and Wafu in particular places them in a more flexible fashion. "You can see how the natural flow is important," Hoyrup says. "That's the best way to live. It's a soothing art to learn."

After Hoyrup spent several years in the United States, the aging Wafu headmaster asked her to manage several chapters of the school. She became president of the California chapter in 1971 and traveled extensively to places like South Africa and Denmark to demonstrate her craft.

Her chapter has now swelled to more than 200 members, most of whom she has taught since arriving in the United States. Several of those former students have become teachers as well. "It's a full-time job," Hoyrup says with a laugh. "I cannot teach everybody."

She's doing her part in this area, however. Hoyrup holds private lessons in her home and has arrangements on display in the Cupertino Sports Center. Her yearly schoolwide exhibitions are almost always held in the Quinlan Center, and her classes with Fremont Union are much more popular now than when she first began teaching in the United States.

They are so popular, in fact, that a number of her longtime students schedule their days off from work to take her classes during the week. "She's so quick and so smart," says Nai-mei Huang. "We bring in our own ideas and she helps us make them work." Hoyrup's students themselves run the gamut of ethnicities—from Chinese and Vietnamese to Mexican and Canadian.

While that reflects one aspect of teaching ikebana in the Silicon Valley, and the abundance of California flowers shows another, Hoyrup has still found one area for improvement. The self-proclaimed nature buff, who loves mountain climbing and camping, uses her garden to release a little tension. "I go out and pull weeds as fast as possible. You get a pure mind by looking at flowers," she says. "This area is too stressful. Ikebana is the best medicine in the modern world."