“I want to show the tulip splendor, the colors and the varieties that many people just don’t know about.” Bulb grower Jeroen van den Hoek from Burgerbrug is looking forward with great anticipation to the Floriade 2022 in Almere, which starts on April 14. Like many other North Holland companies, Van den Hoek has been preparing for the agricultural and horticultural show for months. Van den Hoek supplies more than 100,000 tulips and other plants.
The greenhouse on Belkmerweg in Burgerbrug is full of boxes of tulips. Again, because Jeroen van den Hoek has just delivered tens of thousands of tulips for the Tulip Festival in Amsterdam and the next batch is ready. “Our company specializes in forcing tulips; we simulate winter in a cold store and spring in the greenhouse, so that we can let the bulbs bloom when necessary.”
50 years
Jeroen grew up with the Floriade, which is held in various places in the Netherlands. We have been involved in the exhibition for 50 years this year. “My father was at the Floriade in Amsterdam when I was born in 1972. Every year on my birthday people make a joke that he wasn’t there when I was born.”
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“I have already been to several Floriades. This is now the fourth that I consciously experience. At the show in Zoetermeer (1992), as a student of the horticultural school, I helped plant. I think it is fantastic to see what the developments are in the field. of agriculture, horticulture and fruit growing. It’s great that robots are now driving through the country looking for diseases and weeds in the country.”
Duration
Jeroen’s bulb company has been supplying tulips to countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore for years. “What is striking is that they are so incredibly proud of what it says there in Asia. I am sometimes told that such a show park as the Floriade is only for a short period of time and a waste of money. But if I then see the positive reactions from the visitors hear once they come to see it; that makes it fun to present the flowers. And you will soon be able to live beautifully in Almere.”
The North Holland contributions for the Floriade in Flevoland is big. The theme this year is Growing Green Cities, because the site is a future residential area. Besides the flowers from Jeroen van den Hoek, bulb growers from Obdam and Bovenkarspel also supply planting material. Pakhuis De Zwijger in Amsterdam provides a program ‘We Make The City Green’, landscape architect Niek Rozen from Weesp is responsible for the design of the park and Jacqueline van der Kloet from Weesp made the planting plan. Bejo Zaden in Warmenhuizen and Syngenta in Enkhuizen provide vegetable plants, among other things.
Despite the planning, things are still going on in the greenhouses and cold stores of Jeroen van den Hoek in Burgerbrug. “They want blue in the park, but we don’t have blue tulips. Here we have the boxes with grape hyacinths with daffodils in between. With the tulip you really bring spring. You have color immediately, but it is very hard work and a big challenge to get everything into bloom at the same time. The reaction of the visitors ‘Hey: look’, that’s what I do it for.”
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