Word of the Week: Blumenzwiebeln

The German word of the week is Blumenzwiebeln. This translates to "flower onions" in English and it refers to flower bulbs. The literal nature of so many German words and the German's deep love for onions never fail to make me smile.

We ran across this word quite a lot during our trip to the Netherlands. We started our trip in Amsterdam, and made a quick stop at the Bloemenmarkt to see the floating bulb shops on the canal. It was mobbed, but I really enjoyed seeing the wide variety of bulbs, including some as big as my hand!

After Amsterdam, we rented a car and drove along The Flower Route. Driving along winding roads in the Dutch countryside and seeing the tulip fields spread out around you is absolutely magical.

We were good and didn't walk in the fields (there were signs everywhere), but it was amazing to stand at the edge of the fields with so many flowers rustling in the breeze.

Timing is everything, too. The flowers peak at a slightly different time each year. What makes the timing even trickier is that the farmers behead the tulips at their prime so that the bulbs get the nutrients. You can see this in the picture above. We felt that just leaving all those pretty flower heads in the dirt was quite a waste, but I guess that the sale of bulbs is lucrative enough that it isn't worth the extra effort. Anyway, all this goes to show that just a day or two can make a huge difference in what you see!

In addition to seeing the growing fields, we also stopped by the famous Keukenhoff Garden. This is an 80 acre garden (the largest in the world!) founded by tulip growers and the nearby town in 1949. It's filled with hundreds of tulip varieties as well as other flowers that spring from Blumenzwiebeln, and it's only open for 3 months out of the year when the bulbs are blooming in spring. They claim to plant approximately 7 million bulbs each year! The displays and groupings and the scent were so beautiful and so varied and bounteous that it was difficult to fully take it all in.

there were many varieties of gigantic tulips, tall as my knee
with blooms bigger than my hand

a river of grape hyacinth!

the woodland setting was lovely

and the cherry trees were in bloom, too

There were some pretty funny sculptures and some interactive bits, too:

whipped cream? bird poo?...???

concrete lilly pads!

arches made of giant, plate-sized lillies

There were several pavilions with cut flower displays like the one above, but, having been to the Boston Flower and Garden Show, these displays were not the highlight of our visit. By far, the most wonderful part was wandering around the grounds, while soaking up the scents and colors of all the flowers.