Very big feet

Quickly on with the highlights of last spring, last week I wasted my time with my enthusiasm about the Daffodil show in the church, but of course there were still a few nice moments worth mentioning.

Every spring is for me by far the most beautiful time of the year, just like the summer by the way, enjoying the Daffodils and looking at Dahlias, or the autumn with all its whims, also beautiful. And not to forget the winter, also by far the most beautiful time of the year; Amaryllises and then hundreds of Daffodils in bloom in my greenhouse.

That greenhouse was extra beautiful this year, I had planted over 400 species in pots to force them to bloom in the greenhouse. Taking photos for the Fluwel Specialty Narcissus page on our site. That was great fun and I also pollinated the flowers of all the pots to win seeds. That is also nice to show; the first seeds are already ripe and are being harvested. This is a Narcissus seed head with Narcissus seeds. It is not the case that every pollinated flower produces an ovule, often only about 10 percent succeed. One species is easier to fertilize than the other. It takes about five years for these seeds to grow into a thick ball that produces a full-fledged flower. In the spring of 2030 I can see what beauty will grow from this. Quite quickly actually because I have heard from a reliable source that the next 5 years will certainly pass just as quickly as the past 5 years so we will be there soon. And the nice thing is that not every seed that comes from the same ovule produces the same flower, every seed is different. It is just like with people, you can often see brother and sister but they are all unique. So spring started well with hundreds of types of Daffodils in my greenhouse and soon after a warm week the flowering outside started in full swing. That was enjoyable. But April does what it wants and when the Daffodils and the first Tulips just started to bloom a bit nicely, Mother Nature still had a little surprise in store.

A heavy storm with a shower of hail gives the flowers a completely different ornamental value. It was really annoying but not to dwell too long on events that are not nice; there was still plenty of beauty to see. By the way, this was exactly 1 day before the entire Narcissus delegation of the World Daffodil Tour came to look at our Narcissus garden.
Look at that poor Narcissus looking sadly at all her amputated pieces of flower… what a misery and she had every intention of becoming as beautiful as possible this spring.

The hailstones fortunately did not fall everywhere and the wind is nowhere as hard as in Petten so fortunately there was still very beautiful to see. Wait, first let me show you the Tulips of Jan Hein, they are close to our Daffodils on the other side of the canal. Storm and hail have topped all the tulips and the leaves are black and blue from the hail. A good week later, after the storm had toppled more than half of Jan Hein's Blue Diamond, the rest of his flowers were laid on the ground by a venomous night frost.

Jan Hein grows bulbs for you with great pleasure but on days like these the pleasure is not there for the full 100%. We are now going to show you beautiful things, we are much happier from… first a bulb fields to cheer up a bit; they are fantastic this year. Tulip field at the Korte Vliet near Den Helder The Velvet Daffodils at Jan Hein's nursery (a few days before the hail storm) 😊 The beautiful white one is the Daffodil 'Love you More' Tulip 'Exotic Emperor' The Poldertuin in Anna Paulowna. Fantastically beautiful again this year The tulips of neighbor Paul opposite our house Fortunately, many people came to help during the weekends to enjoy this phenomenal view Oh yes, almost forgot. The entire bulb industry will laugh at me when they see this, but we will be the first to offer you the phenomenally beautiful tulip Love Story For such a massage you are of course always thanked with a flower… I got a few from Jan. She is really beautiful And for the people who thought I was exaggerating by saying that Jan Vink was a giant… And here he is, standing barefoot.

But I'm going to end this, I'll be picked up soon to go to the Keukenhof party. Every year Keukenhof organizes something for all growers who send in bulbs to plant in Keukenhof. Always fun with lots of colleagues, chatting about bulbs. Looking forward to it, see you next week. As a dessert, a housekeeping announcement. May 14 is the last day that you can order Dahlias and other available summer bloomers from us. So if you still want to plant Dahlias... Dahlia French Cancan

Kind regards,

Carlos van der Veek