Amsterdam
It was urgent, last Saturday at Dam Square. Crowds of flower fans came to the heart of Amsterdam to pick a bunch of tulips for free on National Tulip Day. The waiting time increased to more than an hour.
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It is an impressive building, the Royal Palace on Dam Square. Large halls, marble floors. But there is one downside: the king has no garden. Fortunately, the tulip industry helps the frost one day a year by building a tulip garden in the square in front of the palace door.
According to a young tradition, this happens on the third Saturday of January: the National Tulip Day. For the industry, this is the start of the cutting tulip season. To promote their product, therefore, tulip growers set up a tulip garden early in the morning where visitors put together a bouquet of their favorite colors to their heart’s content in the afternoon. But not too bad: everyone had a limit of twenty pieces. That is why tulip fans got a biodegradable bag at the entrance to the garden that could hold exactly twenty.
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© ANP
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Spring feeling
In total there were 200 thousand tulips on Dam Square, so that ten thousand visitors – mainly foreign tourists – went home with a bag full of spring feeling. This time the event was dominated by the jubilating foundation Make a Wish, which makes wishes of sick children come true. On behalf of Make-A-Wish the Netherlands – which celebrates its 30th anniversary – the ‘wish children’ Zoé, Femke and Evy opened the pluckfestival. “That way they could show everyone how colorful your day can be,” says chairman Arjan Smit van Tulpen Promotion Netherlands (TPN).
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© ANP
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It is National Tulip Day. There were 200,000 colorful tulips on Dam Square today. Have you also picked a bunch of tulips? pic.twitter.com/AxasGw4SoY
– Municipality of Amsterdam (@AmsterdamNL) January 18, 2020
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Promotion
The tulip garden is an initiative of TPN, a foundation in which more than 500 tulip growers and breeders are united. They are committed to the worldwide promotion of the tulip. Chairman Smit from Spierdijk therefore hopes that the images of the tulip garden will be visible far beyond the national borders.
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Around two billion cutting tulips were produced in our country last year, accounting for a turnover of around 300 million euros. That turnover has risen sharply in the last ten years, because in 2009 it was more than half.
Abroad
Nine out of ten tulips go abroad, with Germany being the largest buyer. Our Eastern neighbors are good for purchasing more than a billion cutting tulips every year. That demand continues to grow, says Smit. “The export to the United Kingdom is more difficult because there is uncertainty about the consequences of the Brexit. But Eastern Europe and China are strong emerging markets. “
Tulip fans who still want to go to Dam Square are too late, because the occasional garden was plucked empty around half past four on Saturday.
Read also: Andijker tulips on their way to the national Pluktuin in Amsterdam
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