Tulip Time

Orange rex-type tulips in the front yard.

Magical. Charming. Delightful. TULIPS! I can’t help but love them even if the bunnies and squirrels prey on mine. I plant a few every year with a handful of daffodils or alliums and hope for the best.

Peony tulip in the back yard.

This spring, my dear friend Edith texted “You want to play hooky and go see tulips?” How could I pass that up? We spend a delicious day driving to Holland, MI for their tulip season and made sundry stops along the way that made our plant geek hearts happy. (Did you know that Michigan City, IN has a botanic garden? Now you do!)

Of course it was 90 degrees and spring flowers were fading so fast you could practically watch them, but we loaded up on sunscreen and water and ventured out. We stumbled across a parade in downtown Holland and since it was Thursday, was told it was the small parade. The big one would be Saturday. We’re not sure what their big parade looks like, but were pretty impressed as we watched band after marching band, sparkly floats, rafts of school children in Dutch costume, and thousands and thousands of tulips.

Then we nipped up north of town to Veldheer Tulip Farm because if you’re going to go see tulips, you really should see ACRES of them. According to their website, about 5 million tulips. We believe it.

They give you a guide and a pencil so you can circle your choices to order for fall planting. We have quite the shopping list! The air was perfumed with crabapple blossoms and we had a lovely time wandering the blocks and trying to decide on favorites. Edith wants all the orange ones. I want all the dark purples.

And since tulip time tends to be a short window (especially when above 85F) I splurged on a market bunch from Sweet Pea Stems who sells at my CSA. These are truly Baroque tulips and they are gracing the dining room table in all their saturated glory!