Holland’s Garden of Delights : Destination: Netherlands : Keukenhof Celebrates 400 Years of Tulips

LISSE, Netherlands — In a way, I was reminded of Oz.

As we entered Holland’s Keukenhof gardens last spring, instead of poppies to either side of our path, there were tulips, big red ones, the size of candy apples. And like Dorothy, the Lion, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, we were drawn forward. The enchantment grew. Along one pond’s edge, tulips and daffodils presented double images--as white swans sliced through the rippling reflections in the water’s surface. Spring flowers of every sort caught the eye--fragile anemones spreading little carpets along the edges of the beds, fritillaria blossoms hanging bell-like from tall stalks, cherry trees dipping pink-laden branches to the ground. One breathtaking vista ran arrow-straight back through the woods in an avenue of tiny, deep-blue grape hyacinths bordered by yellow daffodils and more red tulips.

People who love spring can do no better than visit Keukenhof, the world’s largest flower garden--and just possibly the world’s most beautiful one as well. Over 6 million bulbs--tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, amaryllises--bloom here each year on some 70 exquisitely landscaped acres. And the effect is, well . . . intoxicating.

I never grow tired of Keukenhof. I have been there three times over the years, and would go again now, if I could. It is an elixir. There couldn’t possibly be a place where flowers delight more. And probably no more so than in 1994, which marks the 400th season that tulips have bloomed in the Netherlands. The anniversary is to be celebrated in grand style (see accompanying story on L13), and amid much public relations hoopla as an opportunity to lure visitors and their pocketbooks.

My wife and I paid our most recent visit last spring in mid-April. We were staying in an Amsterdam hotel and could have taken a guided tour of the park, driven there in a tourist bus. But we preferred to be on our own, so that we could wander freely and, later, explore some of the surrounding countryside. Since Keukenhof lies only a half hour or so by car southwest of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, we decided to take a train from the city’s main railroad station to the arrivals terminal and there rent an automobile for the day. This would save us from having to drive through city traffic and to skirt the omnipresent bicyclists.

We started early, eager to arrive at Keukenhof as close as possible to the 8 o’clock opening. We knew from experience that Dutch spring mornings are often a whole lot brighter than the afternoons, and that there is nothing like crisp sunshine to bring out the flowers’ colors.

Driving was easy. We found the roads on the way well marked, with signs pointing the way to Lisse, the town nearest to Keukenhof. Even if we had lost the way, we would not have been at a loss for directions: Almost every Netherlander speaks English to one degree or other.

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For so beautiful a place, Keukenhof has quite an ordinary name. It means “kitchen garden,” dating from the time when this was a vegetable patch and hunting park for a noble family. Entering the garden, we were instantly enveloped in the perfume of thousands of hyacinths. And if this weren’t enough of a special welcome, we were serenaded by birds chirping in the newly leafed trees.

H.N.T. Koster, the landscape architect who designs the flower beds, uses color like an oil painter, setting up strong contrasts, or subtly blending pinks, whites and pale blues. His intent is never to overwhelm the eye, but rather to lead it on. With little rises, ponds, streams and canals to separate areas, and the flowers winding brightly around these, he has made this an intimate place despite its large size. And such is Keukenhof’s magic that though it can become very crowded (almost a million visit during the April-May season when it is open to the public), people seem never to get in the way. Perhaps that is because almost everyone walks slowly, with head bowed, mesmerized by the sight of flowers, flowers, flowers.

One of the excitements of Keukenhof is its dazzling variety. Tulips appear not only in their ordinary globe-like form in a range of solid colors, but also with striped or variegated petals, some of the edges shirred, some ruffled, some fringed. Several seem more like peonies than tulips, and a few are even sweetly scented. Many stand only inches tall; others rise proudly on sturdy, three-foot stems.

The 100 or so Dutch bulb growers and exporters who participate in the garden are eager to display their finest here. The growers are forever experimenting with crosses, seeking new strains. In a way, it is as though tulipmania, the obsession that seized the Dutch in the 17th Century, never quite abated. Then people squandered fortunes investing in bulbs that promised different colors and markings. The desire for rarity ran so high that individual bulbs could command extravagant barter prices; a single bulb was said to have been exchanged for a silver goblet, a bed, a fine suit of clothes, 12 sheep, eight pigs, four oxen and a thousand pounds of cheese. When tulipmania had reached its peak in 1637, the market--as so often happens when unreality overtakes such ventures--went bust.

Sanity may rule now, but the quest for the exotic continues. It is a matter of good business: The Dutch command the international bulb market, and they see the advantage in delivering to gardeners everywhere the showiest, the prettiest, the latest. Indeed, 95% of the bulbs planted in the world come from the Netherlands. Nowadays much attention is being devoted to developing bulbs that will withstand diseases and flourish in warm climates.

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As my wife and I knew from past experience, there is no one route to follow in Keukenhof. We found more than once that we had doubled back on ourselves, and didn’t mind. In fact, on a couple of occasions we deliberately returned to spots for another view of them. The goal is to amble, to relax, to enjoy, to drink it in.

Yet for seemingly so easy a place, nothing is left to chance. Thirty gardeners tend the flowers and lawns, part of a staff of 350 that includes costumed hostesses to answer visitors’ questions. So that the garden is continually in bloom during the two months it is open, the flowering time of each variety is taken into account, and the bulbs are planted accordingly. While some are fading, others are just coming into full glory. From year to year the beds themselves are shifted, another means of cutting down on the risk of soil infection, and keeping the garden continually fresh.

Weather can be a problem in Holland. What is spring without rain? But even here, only a few miles from the sea and its storms, the Dutch have taken care of everything. They have built a gigantic greenhouse at the center of the park, and it encloses another garden that presents, just like the beds outside, a carefully timed, ever-changing flower show.

Scattered throughout the garden are exhibition areas and cafes, and there is a large restaurant as well. Feet can grow tired on Keukenhof’s 10 miles of paths, and we retreated to the restaurant for a cup of strong Dutch koffie and Dutch apple cake, made with tart apples and served under a couple of clouds of whipped cream.

Visitors who are stirred by the displays can buy cut flowers or, better yet, order bulbs to plant. Keukenhof lies in the heart of the Netherlands bollenstreek , the 49,000-acre bulb district between Leiden and Haarlem. Stretching out from the garden’s boundaries in all directions are the fields of some of the many growers.

This is where we headed after our morning in the park. We drove past row upon row of tulips, hyacinths and daffodils running straight to the horizon in precise rows that narrowed and converged in the distance, drenching the landscape in color. And more than once we saw a bulb grower wandering up and down his rows, wooden shoes on his feet, eyes cast down, looking for the genetic sport, the one unique flower that might be the basis for a whole new line (and make him rich). This spring, when I go out to our garden to admire the tulips we bought at Keukenhof (bulbs intended for the U.S. are specially inspected and approved for shipment), I will think gladly of him and all those other Dutch farmers who down through the years have given so much pleasure to the world.

GUIDEBOOK

Holland Holiday

Getting there: KLM is the only airline offering nonstop service from LAX, but American, Delta, Northwest, TWA and United offer connecting flights. Lowest advance purchase round-trip fare is $768 until March 15.

Keukenhof gardens: In 1994, open 8 a.m.-7:30 p.m. from March 24 to May 23; admission $8 per adult, seniors $7 and children $4; local telephone 25-211-9144. Those preferring a guided tour can obtain information about tour agencies from the VVV tourist office in Amsterdam, located at the main railroad station (tel . 20-551-2512). Travelers without cars who want to be on their own can avail themselves of the Netherlands Railways’ Keukenhof day trips (a train-bus combination), leaving from the same station daily. The adventurous can rent bicycles in Noordwijk, a seaside resort town near the bulb district, and pedal through the tulip fields to Keukenhof; for information about rentals and routes, get in touch with the Tourist Information Board Noordwijk (tel. 17-191-9321).

Where to stay: A personal favorite in Amsterdam is the Hotel Ambassade (Herrengracht 335, 1016AZ; tel. 011-31-20-626-2333; double rooms $135-$145), consisting of several joined, 17th-Century patrician homes. It’s small, charming and well-located, and the antiques in its lounge can rouse covetous instincts. We’re also fond of the Hotel Pulitzer (Prinsengracht 315, 1016HX; tel. 011-31-20-523-5235; doubles $190-$215), bigger than the Ambassade, but intimate. Also made up of old canal houses, it offers a refreshing variety of rooms, no two of which seem alike. The Amsterdam Marriott (Stadhouderskade 19-21, 1054ES; tel. 011-31-20-607-5555; double rooms $230-$250) lacks Old World qualities but is crisply efficient and well located near the Rijksmuseum, an advantage for art lovers. Car renters who would like to spend a night in the bulb district might stay at the Witte Raaf, Duinweg 117, 2204AT, Noordwijk (tel. 011-31- 25-237-5984, $90-$110); it’s the Dutch version of a motel.

For more information: Contact the Netherlands Board of Tourism, 225 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 326, Chicago, Ill. 60601; tel. (312) 819-0300.

Tulips and a Smile

Tulips have bloomed in the Netherlands for 400 years, but the flower the world associates with Holland isn’t Dutch at all. It came to Holland via Turkey, where it had become the favorite of the sultans. And the Turks had gotten it, in turn, from the steppes of western and central Asia, its home in the wild. Thanks to their love for its enameled beauty, the Turks bred the little flower into something to bedazzle the eye. Sufficiently impressed, the Austrian ambassador to Turkey had several bulbs sent to the Dutch botanist Carolus Clusius, who in the autumn of 1593 planted them as a novelty in the garden of the Hortus Botanicus (Botanical Garden) in Leiden. The Dutch took to the new flower with a vengeance; in time even the Turks were importing breath-taking varieties that the Dutch had created through cross-pollination.

During the 17th Century the craze for tulips in Holland got out of hand, with furious speculation going on over bulbs that promised breakthrough colors and patterns. Three bulbs of one strikingly variegated type, Semper Augustus, sold for three times the price of a house on one of Amsterdam’s canals just before the 1637 collapse of the market.

Today, there are more than 2,700 tulip varieties, identified by name and color and described in the finest detail in a 300-page official registry. Many bear the names of famous people--and then there are some that have made their namesakes famous, such as Madame Lefebre, a particularly popular bloom the world over.

In celebration of their 400-year-old love affair with the tulip, the Dutch are putting on many special exhibitions and garden shows from March through May this year. Here are a few of note:

Tulipmania, Inside and Out, Frans Hals Museum, De Hallen, Haarlem; local telephone 23-319-180. Worth a visit at any time of year for its fine collection of paintings, this museum increases its drawing power between March 24 and May 23 with an exhibition of objects, paintings and prints associated with the 17th-Century craze, and some of the rare tulips that were the cause of it.

400 Years of Tulips: A Source of Inspiration, Museum for the Bulb-Growing District, Lisse; tel. 25-211-7900. From mid-March until the middle of June, the museum will hold an exhibition showing how Dutch artists--painters, weavers and potters--have been inspired by the tulip.

Hortus Botanicus, Leiden; tel. 71-275-144. During April and May, this botanical garden--the very one in which Clusius planted the first tulips in 1593--will have a living tulip display featuring the tulip’s family tree.

Hortus Bulborum, Limmen; tel. 22-051-529. This outdoor museum of living bulbs will have in bloom--between April 10 and May 15--several tulip varieties dating back hundreds of years.

Hortus Haren, Haren; tel. 50-632-010. From March 26 until May 22, three million tulips will bloom in the Tulpenhof garden; a special Turkish garden will trace the tulip’s history.

Keukenhof, Lisse; tel. 25-211-9034. In addition to its spectacular sea of flowers, Keukenhof will present a special exhibition of paintings by European masters in which tulips are the focus.

The Corso: Each year, the famous colorful parade wends its way from Haarlem to Noordwijk through the Bulb District with flower-decorated floats. This spring, the parade is scheduled for April 23, with special emphasis on the tulip’s 400th anniversary in Holland. The floats can be viewed the day before the parade at Hobaho Hall, Lisse.