In spring the Netherlands is transformed into a vast sea of flowers from mid March to mid May. It starts with crocus season in March, which is followed by daffodils and hyacinths. Finally the star: tulips show their amazing colors and shapes, this is usually from April through May.
When thinking of tulips in the Netherlands, you think of the Keukenhof, but there are other ways to enjoy the blooming flowers, with muuuch fewer tourists or none.
Keukenhof Gardens?
To actually walk through tulips, go here instead of Holland's most famous Garden, keukenhof, the reason?
“Too busy, busses everywhere, cues of thousands of people”
The most famous tulip gardens
Just imagine waiting in large cues, traffic jams for hours!, parkings of 200 or even 300 buses.. the big tours, the thousands of cars.....last year the park had to close doors due the excess of visitors in one day.. It was really awful. Too many people everywhere...Thats what people think is the best to enjoy the tulips in the Netherlands is in the Bollenstreek, the bulb region, but i disagree –The Bollenstreek is the area between Haarlem, Leiden and The Hague , with the cities of Hillegom, Katwijk, Lisse, Noordwijkerhout Noordwijk, and Teylingen, also known as the Flower Route. But even in these areas, there are crowds, cars park just everywhere on the sides of the road, and people always people everysinglewhere you go....
So where to see the real tulip fields? My tip:
For me the best tulip fields and tulip farms are in the north, specially in the Beemster area and around Hollands Kroon en Schagen, also Twist, also around the SchermerMollen you can find stunning old traditional windmills around the tulip fields, can’t get better than that! and without big industries around the fields like in the Bollenstreek!
And much bigger fields! and if you hit it at the correct time in Hoorn you can time travel by a real Steamtrain between the towns of Hoorn and Medemblik through the Westfrisian countryside. They call it the tulip train because it goes by all sorts of tulip fields, villages, windmills , it goes through many tulip fields.
When?
Now the blooming: this depends on several things: the temperature during the winter months and the weather & temperature during springtime, also when did the farmer planted the bulbs on the ground, can cause a later blooming and more slowly. And warm weather will cause the tulips to bloom earlier and faster.
The website tulipsinholland.com has have been monitoring the blooming of the tulips since 2010.
You can read the weekly tulip updates of the past years on this page on that website.
To give an example: in the beginning of April 2014 all the tulip fields were in bloom due to a warm winter and springtime. A year earlier in 2013 we had the tulips in the fields at the first week of May 2013. This is a time difference of 4 weeks. Tulips are generally in bloom in the fields for a three-week window.
Foto by Seila Malo
Weekly flower bloom UPDATE 1st March 2020:
Daffodils and crocus are in full bloom, hyachinths are not there yet, temperatures the past few weeks are cold, so tulips might start blooming probably end of march, beginning of april.
UPDATE 9TH march: Keukenhof is opening its door in less than 2 weeks and around Lisse today we found the first purple hyacinths fields in full bloom! early variety!
