European garden tour Part 1

25 July 2022
European garden tour Part 1

We are so grateful to passionate gardener Gilles Lardy for sharing his experience with us on his recent European Gardens tour. What an incredibly inspiring experience. You can find out more about Gilles here via his Instagram page @elthamgardengrub. Part 2 coming soon...

Keukenhof Garden is located in Lisse, a mere 30min drive from Amsterdam.


After three years not being able to visit my family in France, we decided to embark on a 6 weeks trip to Europe. Besides the family visit, the itinerary and schedule was planned around two key garden events: the tulip display at Keukenhof Garden in the Netherlands (April) and the Chelsea Flower Show in London (last week of May).

Keukenhof - Pic 3

Keukenhof Garden is located in Lisse, a mere 30min drive from Amsterdam, and is renown worldwide for its spectacular spring bulb displays, with about 7 million bulbs planted each year. It is open to the public for only a short period of time from the last week of March to mid-May.

Keukenhof - Pic 4

The whole garden, is planted with bulb beds of various sizes and shapes: some presented as traditional borders, some as freeform drifts and others forming intricate patterns. Most beds were planted with a few cultivars, others as a meadow style mixed planting, but all demonstrated the concept of layered bulb planting, both in term of height and flowering time. Most tulip bed were under planted with the likes of Muscari, Scilla or even Hyacinthus, with towering Fritillaria imperialis or F. persica added to provide early interest (for more information google “Lasagna bulb planting method”). 

The garden also has an educational side with information on the history of tulip growing in Europe as well as the development and selection of new cultivars. Did you know that it takes an average of 15 years to bring a new tulip to market? 

Keukenhof - Pic 6

Some of the newest tulips are displayed in dedicated covered bed in the Willem-Alexander Hall which sits in the middle of the park. The diversity in height, colour and shape is astounding given that all Tulipa cultivars grown today come from just a handful of Central Asian species and is a true testament to the Dutch mastery at breeding and selection.

If you get the chance, you can extend the visit by a bike ride among to the bulb cultivation fields which surround Lisse. For the fellow bulbophiles, a visit to the Hortus Bulborum in Limmen, which hosts a collection of about 4000 historical bulb and tulip cultivars, is also a must.

Keukenhof - Pic 8

 

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