Keukenhof
— — the eight weeks the country turns colour.
Not only on a wall.
“Thirty-two hectares of garden between Lisse and Hillegom, open only from mid-March to mid-May. Seven million bulbs go into the ground each autumn, planted by hand in waves so that something is in bloom every week of the run. The flower fields beyond the fence belong to the wider Bollenstreek, and they change colour on the same clock. By the third week of May the gates close and the planting starts again.
Keukenhof, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Keukenhof sits on the grounds of the former kitchen garden of Castle Keukenhof in Lisse, about thirty kilometres southwest of Amsterdam in the province of South Holland. The garden opened in 1949 as a showcase for the Dutch bulb growers of the surrounding Bollenstreek. It covers roughly thirty-two hectares and draws around 1.4 million visitors during its eight-week run. Schiphol Airport is half an hour by bus, and the fields around the park supply much of the cut-flower trade that moves through the Aalsmeer auction.
The garden opens for about eight weeks each spring, from mid-March through mid-May, and is closed the rest of the year. The display is planted in three overlapping waves so that crocuses and early daffodils give way to hyacinths, then to the long tulip run that peaks in the second half of April. Bloom timing shifts a week or two with the weather. After closing, the bulbs are lifted, the beds are stripped, and the next year's seven million bulbs are planted by hand the following autumn.
The signature of Keukenhof is the block planting: long ribbons of a single tulip variety against another, set so the colours read from a distance the way a quilt reads up close. More than eight hundred tulip varieties appear across the run, alongside hyacinths, daffodils, muscari, and fritillaries. The Oranje Nassau Pavilion holds the indoor lily and orchid shows. Outside the fence the commercial fields run in the same stripes for kilometres toward Hillegom and Noordwijkerhout, and the colour reads from the air on the Schiphol approach.