Skagit Valley Tulip Festival

The sun was shining brightly and there were just a few clouds in the sky. With the temperature in the low 50’s, it was a perfect day to tour the tulip fields for the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival held here each year in the month of April.

There is a route throughout the Skagit Valley, marked with signs, that takes you by all the tulip fields. The main attraction is the nearly 1000 acres that is owned by the Roozen family that owns the majority of the bulb producing acreage in the valley. The company – Washington Bulb Co. – was formed by the father six decades ago and is now run by his sons, the five Roozen brothers. It is a fascinating story and the family has done a wonderful job presenting the bulb producing capabilities of their properties.

We took over 75 pictures and it was difficult selecting the ones to place in this entry. I decided to break it down into three sections – the fields, the harvesting and the gardens.

 Starting with these shots of the tulip fields that we passed along the route and that were part of the Roozen farms:

 

 

And this one of Josie standing at the edge of one of the fields to show how high these tulips grow:

 

 

There were employees working in this field that were picking and packaging “tight” tulips in bundles of 10 for sale in the gift shop and the various flower kiosks on the grounds of the company:

 

And this shot that shows how they clip off the tulip tops before harvesting the bulbs:

 

After touring the fields we went into the Roozen Gaarde Gardens, where there were tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, muscari and a few other flower types. These gardens are planted from scratch each year:

 

Finally, here are a couple shots of the daffodils that were also still growing in some of the fields:

 

We grabbed a bite to eat at the garden snack bar and then spent some time walking through the onsite gift shop. It has been (probably) 17 years or so since we last came to this Festival. There have been many changes and we can see where the gardens and the whole Roozen operation has expanded over the years. This area was selected because the topsoil and climate closely resemble the environment in Holland where it all started with this family.

Today we will make a visit to downtown La Conner which is a great compliment to the Festival and the area. We hope to have some pictures from our day in town today…