Holland in May

[Deleted]

I really must share these wonderful images with you all, they were emailed to me this time last year!

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At first glance, it looks like a giant child armed with a box of crayons has been set loose upon the landscape. Vivid stripes of purple, yellow, red, pink, orange and green make up a glorious patchwork. Yet far from being a child’s sketchbook, this is, in fact, the northern Netherlands in the middle of tulip season.

The Dutch landscape in May is a kaleidoscope of color as the tulips burst into life. The bulbs are planted in late October and early November. More than three billion tulips are grown each year and two-thirds of the vibrant blooms are exported, mostly to the U.S. and Germany.














































Their dazzling colors are thanks to the years in the 17th century when tulip mania swept the globe and the most eye-catching specimens changed hands for a small fortune. But like a rainbow, this colorful landscape is a short-lived phenomenon. When the flowers are gone, the land will be cultivated for a rather more mundane crop of vegetables. The Netherlands produce more than nine million bulbs a year!

[hwinpp]

I've never been to Holland when the tulips bloom but I've often be asked to go to Keukenhof, a botanical garden or something similar that has a lot of plants on exhibition.

Has anybody ever tried to cook with the tulip onions?

[Deleted]

Fabulous pictures, but of course those are just the tulips being grown for the bulbs. Naturally, the tulips sold in the flower shops are picked before they ever open.

I really must go to the Netherlands at the right time of year one of these days.

[bjd]

HW, I think those pics must be from Keukenhof, which is the huge bulb producing farm/area. Well, maybe except for the pics with the mountain in the background, and the one with the very N American looking wooden barn.

[lagatta]

Yes, people did eat tulip bulbs during the Hongerwinter, the Dutch famine during the Second World War. www.badpennybook.com/dutchfamine.html Note that many people did sicken or die from the tulip bulbs.

If you are wondering about people walking hundreds of km (perhaps an overstatement, given how small the Netherlands is) it is also because the Nazis seized many Dutch bicycles. Still, a lot of people did set out on bicycles, though it could be a rough ride as some of these had their rubber tires replaced by solid wheels like old waggons.

Another article, but there are some obvious errors (Jewish population murdered out of total Jewish population, for one). ottawastart.com/story/1931.php

I've been in the Netherlands in May, but never visited the tulip fields. Was there for work, in Amsterdam. Although I'm more of an urbanite by inclination, I will try to get there sometime, and certainly to Keukenhof.

In city markets, in season tulips are so cheap that I always had them in my studio room. Many markets sell slightly crooked tulips and other flowers, considered imperfect by the international floral trade, but more like the tulips we grow ourselves in our own gardens.

[Deleted]

May 7, 2011 11:21:57 GMT lagatta said:

Yes, people did eat tulip bulbs during the Hongerwinter, the Dutch famine during the Second World War. www.badpennybook.com/dutchfamine.html Note that many people did sicken or die from the tulip bulbs.

But tulip bulbs were originally imported to the Netherlands as food to begin with. It was only afterwards that people decided they preferred the flowers.

[lagatta]

I guess they evolved as they were developed for floral rather than food purposes. Funny, I thought they were originally imported from Turkey as a flowering plant.