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Fun facts about the festival • The Tesselaar Tulip Festival is in its 66th year making it one of Australia’s longest running festivals. A proud family tradition, the Tesselaar family has been opening their farm to the public since 1954. • In 2019 there will be over 900,000 Tulips with 135 different varieties on show. • The Festival is set across 25 acres of gardens where visitors are encouraged to roam free, enjoying the wide open spaces. • Well over a million spring flowering bulbs will be on display including Tulips, Daffodils, Ranunculus and Anemones. • The garden display is planned over a year in advance, so before this year’s show has even begun, we will already be planning for 2020. • We have planted hundreds of blossom trees to add to our floral show including Cherries, Apples, Pears, Dogwoods, Forest Pansies and Magnolias. • Tesselaar Tulip Festival is home to the world’s largest clog, coming in at almost four metres long. It was carved by renowned chainsaw artist Robbie Bast. • During the Festival, our staff wear costumes from the Dutch fishing village Volendam. This includes traditional Dutch farming shoes - clogs. Clogs have been worn in the Netherlands for hundreds of years (though they don’t often get around in them today). While wooden shoes might seem cumbersome, they are actually comfortable and light, being made out of poplar or willow. Clogs are waterproof and warm – perfect for a Tulip farm! Fun facts about our tulips • Our Tulips are planted in autumn; they are lovingly tended to throughout winter and emerge in spring. We plant a range of varieties and specially treat the bulbs to enable them to flower for the four weeks of the Festival. • When the Tesselaar Tulip Festival concludes the flowers are removed and the leaves are allowed to fade naturally. Once the foliage has yellowed the bulbs are lifted, graded and then placed in temperature controlled storage for replanting the following autumn. • Tesselaar plant the Tulips on a 2 year rotation. The grass you walk on this year was a Tulip bed last year. This crop rotation encourages happy, healthy blooms. • 900,000 Tulip bulbs are planted via machinery with 80,000 planted by hand. • To develop a new Tulip variety it takes over seven years from seed to market. For more information about the 2019 Tesselaar Tulip Festival visit www.tulipfestival.com.au
