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Next: 16 Jan 2027

National Tulip Day

Dutch growers open the tulip season by laying out a free picking garden in the middle of Amsterdam.

Tulip, 2005 Floriade (Canberra)
Photo: John O'Neill, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What happens

On the third Saturday of January Dutch tulip growers build a temporary garden of some 200,000 tulips in the centre of Amsterdam. In the afternoon the gates open and anyone may walk in and pick a bunch for free. The day marks the start of the cut tulip season, which runs until the end of April, when the flowers come from greenhouses rather than fields. It is a growers' event, with a new theme each year, and the queues are long well before the gates open.

The flowers

TulipAbout 200,000 are laid out, and visitors pick their own bunch.Cut flowersThe day opens the Dutch season for cut tulips, grown under glass in winter.

More flowers and customs of National Tulip Day

Decoration Flower bulb cultivation in the Netherlands The Dutch tradition of growing bulbs for fields of spring flowers Carpet or floor pattern, April
About this page

Original text by the Phool desk, written with AI assistance. Background: "Tulip" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from family to family and place to place. If we have something wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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