Say It With Flowers




Tulips at The Keukenhof near Lisse, Holland



As Mother's Day approaches it seems appropriate to talk about flowers in the Netherlands.  When you think of Holland you probably think of windmills, Hans Brinker and tulips.  Although not native to Holland, once the first tulips arrived here in the late 1500's their popularity soared.  In the early 1600's tulips became so expensive that a speculators' market developed.  Prices for tulips exceeded those for a small home; traders made enormous profits.  Tulipmania gripped Holland for two years.  Then, as always seems to happen with these markets, the winds changed -- quickly.  Everyone now had tulips so why pay a high price for something that even the commoners owned. The market crashed, lots of people lost money and everyone wondered how it all happened.   The only difference from today is that it didn't spawn a bunch of books and congressional investigations. 

As an aside, if you look up tulip in Wikipedia, one of the pictures is of the Tulip Festival in Woodburn, Oregon.  Evidently the town has a Dutch heritage, which of course obligates it to have a tulip festival just like every other US town with a Dutch heritage.  In case you are wondering whether the author's ancestors were involved with the town's naming, that is not the case.  Years ago, in response to a letter from my older sister, the town fathers informed us that in the 1800's a fire got out of control and burned down a wooded lot.  Being very pragmatic (i.e. Dutch) people, they conjured up the name Woodburn for their new settlement.  This story is also told on Wikipedia so it must be true. 

Anyway, back to flowers.  Holland supplies 10 billion flower bulbs every year, 70% of the world's total.  If you want to see them at their best, visit the Keukenhof near Lisse.  This 70 acre park contains 6 to 7 million flower bulbs that are planted each fall and then removed in the summer by 60 full time gardeners.   The next year they do it all again with different bulbs and differnt garden designs.  It's kind of like a Farm Progress Show for tulips --the bulbs are all donated by over 90 different growers so that they can showcase their latest hybrids.



My brother, Tom, has a variety named after him.



The Keukenhof gets about 900,000 visitors every year, which doesn't seem like that many until you realize that it's only open in April & May.  There are only three 2 lane roads accessing the park so traffic is horrendous.  And it is tour bus mecca so once you get to the park you have to compete with roving packs of tour groups from around the world.  Luckily, the locals had advised us to go early.  So we rousted Don and Joan out of bed at 6:00 am, ate a quick breakfast and got to the front gate just before the opening at 8:00.  What a difference that made; there was no traffic and we had the park almost to ourselves for an hour. 





This is what the Keukenhof entrance looks like at 7:55 am.  It is much busier at 11:00 am. 




As expected, John Deere was the offical tractor of the Keukenhof






 



They look pretty happy for having gotten up at 5:30 am. 





The latest way to carry your dog in comfort.  We want one of these for Graber. 



Grant taking a break from flower watching to play on the zip line while eating a chocolate covered waffle.

As you might expect, the Keukenhof is right in the middle of prime tulip growing farms.  We drove around the area and saw field after field of tulips in bloom. 


This machine was planting some type of bulb.



One of the tulip fields near Lisse



More tulip fields. 



A hyacinth field near Wassenaar



Our second flower expedition was to the FloraHolland flower auction in Aalsmeer, near Amsterdam.  FloraHolland is a cooperative owned by over 6000 flower growers.  They have six auction houses that sell 48 million flowers and plants every day.  The Aalsmeer auction is their largest handling over 17 million flowers every day.  If you bought a day's worth of flowers at Aalsmeer, that would be enough to give your Mother almost 4000 dozen flowers every day for a year!  That would easily top Harry & David's Fruit of the Month Club.


Millionsof flowers on carts ready for auction




The Aalsmeer Auction is in a warehouse about the size of Rhode Island.  Visitors walk on catwalks above the floor where dozens of tractors pull thousands of carts loaded with millions of flowers.  The auction rooms hold several hundred buyers sitting in tiered rows with computer screens and headsets.  The flower carts come through on an automated rail system.  As the cart goes buy, a lady pulls out a sample to show the buyers (somewhat like Vanna White on the Price is Right). 



One of the five auction rooms at Aalsmeer.  Note the flowers coming through on the track.  It never stops moving.  The auction screen is at the front of the room. 




Meanwhile, the auction is happening on a huge computer screen at the front of the room.  The Dutch use a "clock" for an auction.  The price starts at around one Euro per stem.  Then the ball goes around the clock counting down the price until someone buys.  There is no bidding against one another; the first one to bid as the price falls gets it.  The longer you wait, the lower the price.  But someone could beat you to it.  And you don't have much time to think; it takes about three seconds for the clock to count down.  Once you are the successful buyer you can decide how many containers of that particular flower to take at that price.  Then it's on to the next lot.  It's not quite as exciting as watching the Stenzel Brothers but it's the only way they can auction that much inventory every day.


Flowers that have been sold.  They are lined up ready to be loaded on trucks for delivery. 




The logistics of this business are amazing.  The flowers are picked at the growers on the afternoon before, shipped that evening to the auction house.  They spend the night in refrigerated storage.  Inspection begins at 4:00 am, the auction begins at 6:00, all the flowers are sold by 9 or 10, then shipped out to arrive all across Europe by that afternoon.  Of course others are shipped by plane to arrive the next morning.  Amazing. 

One more thing.  Since the auction begins early and ends when they run out of flowers, the locals' advice was to go early.  So once again, Don and Joan were up at 5:30 to get to the visitors center by 7:00 am.   Who knew that visiting Holland would be so exhausting. 







These carts are on the automated track. 





Tulips and roses are the big volume flowers.  We also saw some African Violets.




Some flowers are moved in boxes.

 One of the advantages of living in the midst of all these flowers is that they are relatively inexpensive to buy.  There are two or three flower stands in Wassenaar.  I usually buy a nice arrangement for about 15 euro.  If I was clever enough to arrange my own I could get the cut flowers for half that price.  During tulip season the going price seems to be 50 cut tulips for 5 euro.  What a bargain. 



Many of the medians in Wassenaar are covered in Daffodils in the Spring. 




The sign says it all....in Dutch, of course.  They're even open on Sunday!




So many colors to chose from.



Some of the author's tulips in full bloom.  Those of you that watched World Cup Soccer last summer will know that Orange is the official color of The Netherlands