During our recent Florida trip, we got a call from our friend Cindy asking us if we wanted to join her in a trip to Holland, Michigan, to see the tulips. Her husband and mother weren’t able to go, and they didn’t want to miss out on their Airbnb reservation. So, after a few days at home, we drove to the Nashville area to pick her up, packed up her more comfortable Lexus SUV, and started the 2-day drive to southwest Holland close to Lake Michigan.
Arriving mid-day Sunday, we worked in our first stop at Veldveers Tulip Farm.
gardens
You’ve probably seen pictures of tulips from the original Holland in the Netherlands where all you can see are tulips. At this farm, they’ve planted 6 million tulips of 800 kinds of plants. Each bed is made up of 500 bulbs, and we’ll learn the why behind this number at the end of this post. Now let’s go on to the rows of tulips and some close-ups of some I found so beautiful. When possible, I’ll add the names.
While the farm is known for its tulips, it also has a variety of other spring flowers. In addition to the millions of tulips, it has 50,000 daffodils (90 varieties), 10,000 hyacinths (25 varieties), and 20,000 crocus (85 varieties of accent bulbs), all providing a continuous parade of color for us to enjoy.
now to the rows of tulips
We read that the official color of the Netherlands is orange, which is why we saw so many orange tulips. I started appreciating them as we walked around.
bison?
Off in the distance we saw some bison wandering around and resting. An American buffalo herd was brought to the farm because of the love the family had for these magnificent animals. The family has been farming for centuries in both crops and animals. Today they have 19 bison. Tacoma is their 14-year-old bull, who stands over 6 feet tall and weighs in at nearly 3,600 pounds. To keep Tacoma company, they have 13 female bison all trying to win his love and attention (according to the farm’s website). They also have the only DNA tested and certified by The National Bison Association identical twins that they’ve named Wange and Nepa.
Would you like to purchase some bison meat? Their website states that they only have USDA quality meat. All bison meat is not the same; each ranch has its own flavor. They want to provide the best, so all of their meat is grass fed, hormone free, and antibiotic free.
If you would like more information please call 616-399-1900. For cooking tips, go to their website: veldheer.com and click on American.
So here’s what we learned from the website and from Jane.
“Veldheer’s is Holland’s only tulip farm perennial garden. Vern Veldheer in 1950 started a hobby farm with 100 red tulips & 300 white tulips, today Veldheer’s plants over 5 million tulips for you to walk through and enjoy. Perennials and flowers are brought in from around the world for you to buy and plant in your gardens. Our philosophy is that each client and their yard are important. Quality is the number one reason in choosing Veldheer’s plants for your yard. Veldheer’s staff are here to help you make the right choices for flowers and plants so your garden can be better than Martha’s.”
Today Vern plants all of the tulips at the entrance to the farm by hand; the rest of the tulips in this post were planted and harvested with machines designed and built in the Netherlands. All of a season’s bulbs are mailed to customers by the end of October for a fall planting.
getting the bulbs
If the bulbs are still in these bins when they arrive at the farm, all but 500 bulbs are ready to be sold. These 500 are planted in the beds that we saw in this post. But . . . if a box doesn’t arrive intact, they bulbs can only be sold as a mixed variety. Now you understand the mixed tulip beds. While the single-color beds are impressive, I think the mixed-color beds are the happiest.
If you visit Holland any time from June 1 to mid-October, you can see their 10-acre landscaped perennial garden with thousands of Dutch lilies, daylilies, peonies and other rare perennials.
Now let’s go look at what else the farm provides.
