Introducing … The Tulips!

This story starts in the Netherlands, when I discovered that tulips are kind of weirdly awesome.

Yeah, I know, but hear me out!

The original tulips come from the mountains and steppes of the Middle East, and were gathered and bred to fill the royal palaces in the spring. The Seljuk Turks in particular were very fond of them and held many a lavish party to view them. The giant hats worn by the Ottomans that everyone compares to an onion is actually meant to mimic a tulip, and many Muslims consider them to be a symbol of Allah, because of the similar spelling in the Arabic alphabet. It wasn’t until much later that the tulip made it’s way to Europe where the Dutch developed a mania for them. It got so insane that at one point a singular bulb of a rare species could be worth as much as a house! Of course, what goes up must come down, and the economy that soared on a tulip high collapsed in a traumatic way when some of the bulbs didn’t show up for inspection before an auction. It was the first stock market crash!

The economy of the Netherlands isn’t so dependent on tulips now, but I would be hard-pressed to say that they don’t have a significant part to play. With all the tourism they bring in, and the sales of the bulbs themselves, I can’t help but think they make the Dutch government a fair chunk of change. Of course, I didn’t know any of this when I first visited the Netherlands. The most I knew was that they seemed to pop up around Easter, and that Canada received a gift of tulips from Holland every year as a thank you for the country’s part in their liberation from the Nazis. I’m not talking about a bouquet, either. They send us 20,000 bulbs! 10,000 from the Dutch Royal Family, and 10,000 from the people of the Netherlands. They get planted in Ottawa every year, and they are quite the sight to behold!

In the Netherlands the place to see tulips is the Keukenhof Gardens, which my Aunt River and I went to see in 2019. We each bought some bulbs and had them delivered to Canada in September. I purchased twelve bulbs of four species: Red Impressions, World Peace, Queen of the Night, and White Triumphator.

Red Impressions were, what I was told, what would be the closest to the original red tulips found in the Turkish royal palaces. I bought them along with World Peace in the hopes that they would naturalize, so that I could give them as gifts, though I hope all of the tulips naturalize! The Queen of the Nights, well those I just had to have. They bloom black! The White Triumphators I bought as a gift for Mom. She loves all things frilly and girly.

Aunt River, being not only the art connoisseur of the family but also the gardening expert, told my Mom and I how to plant them when they arrived. They needed to be in holes dug between eight to twelve inches deep, with a handful of chicken manure fertilizer at the bottom, then the tulip bulb, then another handful of of fertilizer on top before packing the dirt back on top of them.

All that happened this fall, so for now all I can do is wait for the thaw. I’m excited to see them!