What a hassle

Writing a newsletter every week that, between the lines, makes you as a reader fall a little more in love with our flower bulbs… pfff. Nice work, really nice even, if you first know what to write about. Once there is a subject, the hard part is over, the newsletter fills itself.

Well, it has to be about flower bulbs of course. Unfortunately I can't write about that strawberry plant that to its great horror saw a grape, a blue one, growing on its bunch. All the other plants in the strawberry bed saw it happen. How does it end? I wouldn't know, I have to write about flower bulbs. Just like that story about the bird with three legs. Beautiful story, also no idea how it ends, it has to be about flower bulbs. Too bad, it was a very sweet bird that could whistle very beautifully.

Three-ban flora

So, since I can't think of another subject at the moment, I'll tell you something about my visit to the Drieban Flora in Venhuizen. The Driebanflora is a Tulip show organised by Tulip growers from the Venhuizen area. A real village or regional event. What they actually do is approach the mayor of the village on a good Sunday after church, asking if they can use the sports hall on the Koggeweg for a week to organise a Tulip show. That's always possible in a village like that, the handball players can manage without a sports hall for a week, and even enjoy helping to build it.



No sooner said than done, just tell the growers from the area that it has worked again; from 9 to 12 February they can show their Tulips again. You should know that there is a lively Tulip culture in that region between Hoorn and Enkhuizen. There are dozens, maybe even hundreds, of Tulip companies that not only produce Tulip bulbs but also, in the winter months, Tulip flowers for the flower auction. Many of these growers find such a flower show in the local sports hall a wonderful opportunity. Here they can proudly show their products to the neighbours and the rest of the community, so that they can see what they make and what they are working on. And of course also to inform fellow growers and other professionals about all the beautiful things they have to offer.



I thought I'd take a look. It's on the other side of the Kop van Noord-Holland, but after two years without a flower show because of the corona, I was happy to spend the hour there. Open until 9 p.m., the website said, so I went there around 5 p.m. on Friday.

Tulip Roeska

Well, how does it work at a show where you pay €5 entrance fee and enter. You don't expect to meet many people you know, because it's an hour from home and Friday evening, so you go and look at the tulips. What a beautiful quality, those are heavy tulips. And while you're staring at them, someone comes and stands next to you. Beautiful, isn't it? Certainly, what a bunch of tulip bosses. After some more blah blah, but who are you actually, I think I know you from somewhere. Yes, that's what I thought too, you're also familiar. Carlos van Fluwel, Oh gosh, now I see, I'm Axel, I've refined these tulips. You refine daffodils, don't you? And before you know it, it's closing time again. But that's the nice thing about a local show like this that is run by the exhibitors... was there a closing time? So keep on chatting, it's cozy.

It is also nice to tell that the tulip growers who breed tulips for flower production look at tulips very differently than someone like me who uses tulips for the garden. Flower growers talk about properties such as tight leaves, bud presentation, forcing time, thick legs and forcing ailments such as tipping, sour and sweating. All things that I, as a garden lover, have no eye for. The gardener just wants a beautiful flower on a tulip that can stand in the garden for a long time and healthily. With us, they do not have to fly through a processing line at a rapid pace with tight leaves on long legs and a good bud presentation where they are made into bunches of ten.



But luckily, I ran into Rosanne Pater, Perry's daughter. I used to take an EVTO course with Perry (economic education for future entrepreneurs). It was really nice to run into him again. I already knew his daughter Rosanne, who now runs the shop there, because of a few beautiful new tulips that we buy from her; Party Clown and Purple Circus. Rosanne understands better how to do it, if you want to sell something to a garden lover, you have to tell how beautiful the flower is. She immediately grabbed her mobile phone and showed me a photo of a breathtakingly beautiful double yellow OT lily. This is something for Fluwel, she said, really unique. Double OT lilies are hardly available and certainly not in yellow. Indeed, Exotic Sun is a beautiful lily. I want that one Rosanne, but I want to try it myself first. No problem, I'll put a few ready for you at the door. You can pick them up next week. Who knows, we might be able to include it in the Fluwel assortment next year and offer it to you, the reader, I hope so. If a Lily is happy in the garden, it can really start to behave like a perennial and you can enjoy it for years. It is now 23:00 and they still won't send us away, all those Tulip growers are having too much fun together. I'm going home anyway, glad I went for a while. Oh well, I completely forgot to eat. I'll just have an apple at home.

Kind regards,

Carlos van der Veek.

PS, after writing I added some pictures of the Tulip trade show in Zwaagdijk. This is a more national show where Tulip growers from all corners of the world show their newest varieties.