Folko studied horticulture at the Technical University of Munich in Weihenstephan, Germany. After an internship at Kosmos Verlag in Stuttgart, he set up his own company specialising in gardening books and magazines. He has worked as a writer, editor, translator and producer for all the major gardening publishers in Germany. He was editor of the renowned gardening and plant magazine Gartenpraxis for four years and currently works for Gräfe und Unzer Verlag in Munich, Germany’s leading publisher of reference and illustrated books. Since 2006 he has been editor of «der Staudengarten», the quarterly magazine of the German Perennial Society (Gesellschaft der Staudenfreunde e.V.). Since 2016 he is president of this society, which has almost 6,000 members.