Spring is coming…. and so are the tulips.

    

This morning I got a mailing from the “Keukenhof” it opens on March 24. It must be almost spring then…. 

The “Keukenhof” is the fairy tale park with tulips and all all other bulbs you can think of. Tulips are for many people the equivalent of Holland and maybe even of springtime in Holland. 

Of course springtime is more than tulips; the soft green leaves starting to grow on the trees, the crisp air that puts you into a mood to clean the house, getting up in the morning with the sun already shining (when it doesn’t rain).

Just 2 years after Columbus discovered America, the first tulip bloomed in the Hortus Botanicus at Leiden (Holland 1594). People went crazy about this flower and 40 years later this culminated in the Tulipmania. Now we would say a Tulip-bubble. In that time also the Tulipière became fashionable. 

 

So, if you want to see tulips in Holland there is one place you cannot miss. It is this “Keukenhof”. The word "keukenhof" refers to the use as a kitchen garden of a mansion. Ages ago herbs for use in the kitchen were collected on this spot.

And there is more. There are of course the fields where the tulips are grown. Most of the fields are near the coast in the provinces of North- and South-Holland. The bulbs need a mixture of sand and clay.

Not only along the coast there are bulb fields. Also in the “Noord-Oost polder” are large fields full of colorful tulips and other bulbs.

The tulips are special, but look at these tender frittillaria or the daffodils.

  Or this blue river of grape hyacinths that runs through the "Keukenhof"......

See also on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47357125@N08/sets/72157626286247464/