Fun Facts About Tulips!
- At this moment there are about 150 species of tulip bulbs with in total 3000 different varieties.
- Tulips are a part of the same family as lilies (and therefore relatives of onions!).
- Most tulips have one flower per stem, although some species can have up to 4 flowers per stem.
- Tulips were brought to Turkey from the area around the Himalayas. Around 1560 the Turks took them to the Netherlands.
- On Valentine's day, the tulip is the second most popular flower to send after roses.
- Tulips are the symbol of love, passion, perfect lovers, and romance.
- During the tulip mania, one bulb was worth just as much as a canal house in Amsterdam.
- Blue tulips can only be created by painting/dying - or in Photoshop!
- Tulips still grow after they are cut and they continue to bloom for 3-7 days in a vase.
(Source: Tulips In Holland)
Image Souces: Tulip Festival Amsterdam
We frequently travel to Holland for work. Our visits generally involve back-to-back supplier meetings and a fair amount of hunching over laptops.
During a trip in April 2015, we squeezed in a visit to Keukenhof Gardens. Set in the heart of the Netherlands’ prime bulb region southwest of Amsterdam, the garden is home to over seven million spring-flowering bulbs – when they’re in full bloom, it’s a riot of kaleidoscopic colour.
It was early evening and luckily for us, most of the tourists were leaving. Thoughts of work drifted calmly into the ether as we followed meandering paths lined with tulips, narcissi, daffodils, hyacinths, and bluebells. Taking in the patchwork of reds, yellows, pinks, purples, and oranges, we had the same thought; our parents should see this!
So, after coordinating three sets of parents, flights, hotel rooms, and an itinerary (plus a couple of meetings), we went back the following spring – a sort of take-your-parents-to-work weekend! Over the two days, we crammed in a fair few ‘wow-inducing’ sights.
The first stop was Keukenhof. Like kids love sweetshops; parents adore spring flowers…
Then the bulb fields for tulip nirvana. If you’d rather not walk the fields, you could always hire a bike from Rent-A-Bike Van Dam.
And the annual Flower Parade – a heady mix of flower-filled cars, bikes, floats, and marching bands – which passes Keukenhof.
Then, f course, you can’t go to Holland without visiting Amsterdam… or pretending the giant clog is a racing car, vroom vroom… (ahem, Rob Copsey)
On our last night, we had a picnic dinner on the beach. It was great fun if a little nippy (absolutely freezing).
Our trip to Holland was a big hit. We all agreed we’d never seen such an array of psychedelic colours and flowers in the space of 48 hours (well, who knows what our parents got up to in the 1960s).
One thing’s for sure, we all came back feeling inspired to plant more spring bulbs. You never know, in a few years’ time we could even start charging entrance fees.
Atlas Flowers may not sell fresh tulips but we do offer a range of flowers grown in Holland as part of our dried and preserved collection. Why not browse to get some inspiration?
