Tulips season has come and gone in the Netherlands already. The tulips have long since been cut to strengthen the bulbs and only their leaves and stems remain in the fields. Even the Keukenhof botanical garden, which generally extends the season a little bit, is now closed. A banner on their website currently reads "We hope to see you in 2023!" It's a bit of a long wait until next year but its a worthy destination to visit if you're a fan of tulips and/or large flower gardens.
The Keukenhof is located in the province of South Holland in the town of Lisse and this year over 1.1 million people from more than 100 countries visited the garden between the months of March and May. Most of them were from Germany, France, America, and Great Britian according to stats taken from their website, but people generally come from all over the world to see the tulips when they are in bloom.
We visited the garden at the end of April this year, on a day when the weather was unfortunately a bit cold and dreary.
I made the mistake of wearing shorts that day and was quite cold for the duration of our visit.
The flowers were extremely bright and cheerful though, even despite the drab and gray weather conditions.
I actually had to remove some color saturation when editing my photos because every picture looked like the flowers were glowing. I don't think that my phone camera likes up close shots of hot pink or the color red.
The colors in some photos still look fake to me even though I turned them down a little. The flowers were just too bright for my camera to handle! But anyway...
The first thing that you are greeted with upon your arrival is a massive centerpiece display of assorted tulips.
It's basically just a big mound of color.
As you make your way into the gardens you come to a variety of different layouts and color schemes, as well as different patterns and flower varieties.
Actually I was surprised at just how many different varieties of tulips there are out there and how big some of them are. Some were the size of bowls, though you can't tell from the photos.
Apparently, there are over 800 different varieties of tulips and the Netherlands produces new ones each year.
Each variety has a name but I obviously didn't keep track of them. There were way too many for that. This one in particular looks like fire to me, so I'm going to call it the fire tulip.
Many of the flower beds appeared to be very well thought out and were arranged quite beautifully.
Some reminded me of a bouquet of flowers where each stem seemed to be hand placed for maximum effect.
Other areas were the exact opposite though - just simple blocks of color that appeared to be placed randomly along the walking paths. Some of the colors actually clashed a little, but I don't have a photo to give you an example.
It looked a bit lazy in some places but I think it just comes down to the scale of the place really. The garden is said to be one of the largest in the world and is sometimes referred to as the Garden of Europe.
It covers 32 hectares of land and over 7 million bulbs are planted there each year by only 40 growers. The bulbs are donated to the site by over 100 different farmers.
With that in mind I'm guessing that the landscapers and designers take a mixed approach of creating well thought out beds in key places and random color distribution in others that are just meant to fill the voids and save time in planting.
There is a large stream in the park and many water features as well that really add to the overall beauty of the place and make it seem more natural.
A lot of the geese hand goslings when we were there.
You'll also see a large windmill in the park as well, which you can climb up to get a view of the space from above.
It gets pretty crowded though, as you would imagine, so you would have to be comfortable with the crowds.
Something that I thought was pretty neat to see were the maintenance workers on site. We saw several of them mowing the lawns with really good push mowers.
They worked silently without any gas or electric tools. It was obviously done to maintain the calming silence in the garden.
This blue flower bed was neat because it was made to look like a long stream between two different walking paths.
As you can see, there were a lot of different places to explore in the garden and many different flower bed designs throughout the space.
This rock bridge was a pretty popular spot when we were there, with a steady stream of people crossing it.
Each year the Keukenhof does a specific theme in the garden and the theme this year (2022) was Flower classic's. It was a celebration of the flower as a classic symbol of human life that has been used in architecture, art and design for many centuries. Its a pretty broad and generalized theme that wasn't obviously recognized in the garden, but nonetheless, the Kuekenhof was definitly a worthy place for a visit. Even our dog approved!
Lol. That's some pic of the dog!!
Only into the second sentence and I learned something!
There are so many varieties but I must admit my favourite is the traditional closed cup one
That's his "this pleases me" face haha.
Yeah I'd say that the traditional ones are probably my favorite as well but some of the really big ones are pretty cool too. They are like big poppies, in a way.
The big poppy like ones are good too. I dislike the short if exploding petals ones as I have now bore witness to two childbirths and it reminds me too much of post birth vaginas. :0D
Lmao well that would do it I suppose.
😅
the dog was the best part! love it! haha
Absolutely stunning.
I arrived at Leiden in the Spring of 2007, and at the time everyone encouraged me to go visit the tulips. Unfortunately, I never got around to seeing them growing in the fields, but I have seen many photos including yours that show just how amazing it is.
Oh, and that dog! Is he a model dog or what!?🤣
Cool photos man!!
Yeah we almost didn't go because I thought that dogs weren't allowed in. Luckily someone informed us that they were. We missed the fields and the garden the first two years that we were here because of covid, so we were lucky to be able to go at all.
I'm happy you got the chance to experience it. It would have been a shame after all the beauty that you captured around the country, to not have the tulips field. 👏
Yes I agree that it would have been unfortunate. Thanks for the nice words.
You're welcome :)))
Wow that is an amazing garden. It is now on places I want to visit. I know what you are talking about with having to fix the saturation of some flowers. The camera just doesn't know what to do!
Haha yeah. It thinks that they are neon. It does that in bad weather conditions and probably because I was taking up close photos.
Hahahaha, if your dog approved 😂
What a nice place, and full of tulips.
I have not seen any tulips in real life this year, but hive posts are helping not to forget them :))
You haven't seen them just this year or never at all?
Just this year.
Grew up having all the spring flowers in the garden... Now I see tulips just in the flower shops. I guess it's not the perfect climate for them to grow in gardens or in wild in the Mediterranean area.
Yeah I was wondering if they grow in the Mediterranean. It seems like it would be too hot for them down south - but I'm not a tulip expert.
Not a tulip expert here either, but I guess for some reason they enjoy Holland more than Spain 😁
Great pics. No I can't post, mine are so rubbish 😫
Oh that's too bad. I was actually holding off on posting about it to give you the first go, but I'm falling behind on my posts so I just went ahead with it lol.
Wow that place is beautiful!! I wanna go visit there someday, I especially wanted to go visit some tulip place in Netherlands and looks like this is one of those places to go! Would be so relaxing to be there surrounded by those pretty flowers.
Also those shots are stunning and I love the vibrance of them all😍
Yeah the Keukenhof is the main tulip place to visit in the Netherlands. It's a massive botanical garden - as you can see. You can also just visit the fields of tulips in certain parts of the country, which is best done by biking.
Your dog is such a cutie, haha! I guess a trip to Netherlands is incomplete without admiring the tulips from up close. That's a beautiful site to enjoy them, wonderfully landscaped and well designed. Tulips from 100 different farmers? Wow!
Yeah it's quite a few farmers that supply the tulip bulbs. But 6-7 million are planted each year so it would take a lot of farmers to do so, I suppose.
Haha! You brought the dog! That is awesome! I am so glad to see that you went!
I love that you really accentuated the flowing curvature of the beds, each one brilliantly displayed. I have never seen anything quite as spectacular as that one, ever. Those stepping stones were such a nice touch, weren't they?
You have such a good eye for the artist qualities in your photography. Darn, they really do have a lot of tulips, don't they? The sweeping beauty is jaw dropping beautiful.
Thanks for the send us a real feast for they eyes. I made my night!
Glad you liked it and yeah, I'm very happy that we went. It is a very beautiful with so many tulips and so many varieties in one place. The water features really added a lot to the space as well.
Thanks for the compliments 😊
It would be really hard to not be wowed by the post.
Thanks. I appreciate it 😁
The gardens are truly something special. The amount of different tulips is so vast. One more beautiful than the other. 🌷🌷🌷🌷 hope you can visit next year again.
Thanks @leaky20 for sharing such beautiful photographs with us!
Have a great day 👋🏻☀️🐝
Yeah it's a pretty unique experience to see all those tulips in one place. We were glad to have finally made there.
Up to the next time @leaky20 😊 something like this garden never gets boring.
It is just stunning 🤩
Haha yes I agree. Hopefully there will be a next time
🤞🏻😉 why not
So beautiful! Our tulip festival, the subject of my last post, ends this weekend.
Yeah tulip season is quickly coming to and end unfortunately :(
A few tulips were past their prime for the festival. Best to come early.
Omg...! Such a heaven area. I have seen the tulip on the TV mant years ago. That day, i wished I had could visit Netherland to watch this flower and now I still cannot do it...! Tks you so much for sharing... I really love it.
Yeah there are so many beautiful places in the world but unfortunately there is no way we could see them all. Luckily there is Hive to see them through other people.
Amazing view of the Turnips. It´s always nice to see nature bloom and the colourful turnips especially :-)
I'm guessing that your phone autocorrected the word "tulips" to "turnips" which I find hilarious. Now all I can think of is a field of colorful turnips. Delicious and nice to look at hahah😂
Autocorrect can sometimes result in the most delicious corrections 😅
Hahaha yes very true. 😂
Hahaha that was nice ender picture hahaha. Salute to the landscaper they made this place amazing. This kind of art is refreshing.
Yeah, they did a really nice job indeed. Glad you liked it. 👍
I love this! So much colour and "life" in there! Great job!
Thanks. Yeah gardens are usually quite nice to see.
These flowers are not only cheerful and beautiful to the eyes, they scream of all the wonders in the world. I like working my brains and I just mentally imagined walking there with my arms spread wide touching them as I move. I would easily draw inspiration to write just by sitting down and looking at this gorgeous sight. Wow!
You've painted quite the picture and I totally get what you mean. I have a feeling that dragging one's hands across the tops of the flowers would be frowned upon at the garden though haha.
I don't know how delicate tulip stems really are but I'm picturing a lot of broken stems if everyone did that lol 😂.
😂😂😂🤣🤣😂🤣🤣 my bad. I have been fascinated with the beauty that I forgot how delicate they must be. Nature should forgive me 🙈🙈🙈
Haha no worries. I understood the feeling that you were describing. I was just joking really lol.
😊😊😊 thank you.
I loved home photography, what a special and beautiful place. I see you did a lot of poses to be able to get so many impressive angles. What made me smile was the dog's face, hehe, he posed for the photo with a very happy gesture.
Yeah I take a lot of photos generally. The dog was especially happy when he was being carried.
I love the flowers 😍😍
I do as well!
It is a beauty of a place, a marvel 😍✨
Yes, it's quite nice indeed. 😁
this flower garden is very amazing
I'm glad you liked it 😁
Woooow, i love that. Good job
Thanks 😁
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These Duch Tulip gardens are truly amazing, just so beautifully behold. Thank you for sharing, and for all the pictures. =)
I really need to go visit them sometime in the future. =)
wow, beautiful place
loves it. very colorful and I was imagining the flowers' aroma.
tks for sharing.
Yes it's very colorful indeed