tulips have always appealed to people’s imagination.
In 1636 bulbs of the famous tulip Semper Augustus were sold at the
Haarlem tulipmarket for 2000 guilders apiece. That amount was thirteen
times the annual wage of a bricklayer and 400 guilders more than
the payment received by Rembrandt for his “Nightwatch”
painting. These exorbitant tulipprices arose because of the hysterical
speculation with tulips, the so called tulipmania in the thirties
of the 17th century.
In spring the fields behind the dunes in the western Netherlands
are still in full bloom: tulips, chrysanthemums and other flowers
show us their magnificent display of colour.
The Keukenhof is a famous place which attracts thousands of visitors
from home and abroad at the end of March, April and the beginning
Many bulbfields were laid out on levelled old dunes because of the
calcareous soil and good water balance.
World’s greatest flower auction
Besides bulb-growing the Netherlands also have an extensive production
of cut flowers, concentrated in the greenhouse area round Aalsmeer,
about 20 kilometres south of Amsterdam. Via Amsterdam Airport the
cut flowers are transported all over the world. The Aalsmeer auction
is the largest flowerauction in the world. Here, every day, the
world price for flowers and plants is set in the largest trade building
in the world. (766,000 square meters) On the 13 auction clocks nearly
20 million flowers and 2 million plants are sold every day, supplied
by 7000 growers all over the world.