Willamette tulip farm Woodburn
— — forty acres of colour the valley wakes up to each spring.
Not only on a wall.
“The Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm sits south of Woodburn, on family land the Iverson family has worked since 1974. Roughly forty acres come into bloom from late March through early May, depending on the year. The rows run east-west toward Mount Hood, which holds the eastern horizon on a clear morning. The festival opens with the early Triumphs and closes with the late Darwins, and a quiet rain morning is when the colour is deepest. from the studio
Willamette tulip farm Woodburn, 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.
The Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm is a family farm south of Woodburn, in Marion County, Oregon, about thirty miles south of Portland. The Iverson family began planting tulips on the property in 1974 and now grow roughly forty acres of bulbs alongside the rest of a working farm. The annual Tulip Fest runs from late March through early May, the exact dates set each season by the bloom. On clear mornings Mount Hood, fifty miles east, holds the horizon behind the rows; the Cascades hold the far eastern edge of the valley.
The bloom runs in waves. Early Triumph varieties open from late March, the mid-season tulips come in through April, and the late Darwins and parrots carry into early May. The window is set by the winter — a cold January can push first bloom into April, a warm one can pull it forward by ten days. The farm posts a weekly bloom status during the festival. A grey morning, especially after rain, reads warmest in the field; the rows are saturated and the light is even.
The farm sits about five miles south of Woodburn off Highway 99E, with parking on-site and a per-vehicle admission for the festival. Weekends fill quickly; weekdays and early mornings move at a different pace. Beyond the rows the farm runs a small market, food vendors, and bulb sales for fall planting. The northern Willamette Valley is the soil that supports the bloom — deep silt-loam laid down by Pleistocene floods, the same alluvium that feeds the valley's hazelnut and berry farms.