Showing posts with label New Zealand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Zealand. Show all posts
Sep 13, 2016
Nov 17, 2015
Fall Tulips from the World of Color
Fall Tulips Lady Aster Netherlands New Zealand southern hemisphere tulips tulip farmingAsk any avid gardener when tulip season is and they'll tell you--"Spring." However, ask any tulip grower at Sun Valley the same question and they'll reply--"All year, baby!"
Our own Lane DeVries is a 4th generation tulip grower, and our iconic tulips are considered Sun Valley's "bread 'n butter." This is because of our deep love for these flowers as well as our Fall Tulip Program which has ensured that YES we can have our cake and eat it too...all year long!
To show how we do this, we need to take a little trip around the world.
Northern Hemisphere Spring
Typically, our tulip bulbs come from the veritable homestead of tulips, the Netherlands. Have you seen the striking photos of their countryside in springtime? Amazing. Our Dutch partners grow fields and fields of color and allow the flowers to bloom out completely. During this time, the leaves continue photosynthesizing energy from the sun, and all that energy returns to the bulb. Those bulbs are then dug up, inspected, and shipped to us.
We receive the dormant bulbs at the end of October, plant them in our rich soil, and store them in coolers where they begin to root. As their roots become established and small sprouts form, we move them into "winter" coolers. This cold environment arrests their development and they go into hibernation. When Spring comes, we are able to pull the crates into the greenhouse on a rotating schedule that ensures we will be picking fresh tulips every week.
Depending on your location and winter temperatures, this is the same process tulips go through if you were to plant them in your garden during the Fall season... they root in Fall, hibernate in Winter, and come Springtime they begin to emerge and show some serious color. It is their natural rhythm.
So what do you do if you want to grow tulips year-round? You flip the switch! This means we go to the opposite hemisphere for our Fall Tulip bulbs--New Zealand. There is quite a history between New Zealand and Holland, which began way back in the 1600s, but the exciting floral exchange occurred during the Dutch migration and contributions of the 1950's, which included Friesian cows and, of course, marvelous tulips.
Southern Hemisphere Spring
Using bulbs from the Southern Hemisphere, we mirror our Fall Program to look like Spring. Six months prior to fall, our partners "down under" ship freshly-dormant bulbs by boat to foggy, coastal California. When they arrive, we plant them in soil, let them root, and then hibernate in "winter" coolers (and all of this is happening during OUR summer!). When Fall arrives in California, we place crates of rooted bulbs in the greenhouse, which then act as if it were springtime (and it is in their birthplace!). So even though these Southern Hemisphere Tulips are in our Northern Hemisphere Fall, they are bursting with vigor of spring, and ready to go.
Having the coolers full of rooted, hibernating tulips gives us amazing control. We are able to bring them into the greenhouse in a staggered rotation, which allows us to pick the colors and varieties that are in-demand per season. The best part, however, is that we can have tulips all-year, with no lapses in production.
We are now smack-dab in the middle of harvesting these soil-grown, Southern Hemisphere beauties, and this will continue through the holidays!
So take a trip around the World-of-Color with us, and share in the bounty of spring quality tulips right now.
Our own Lane DeVries is a 4th generation tulip grower, and our iconic tulips are considered Sun Valley's "bread 'n butter." This is because of our deep love for these flowers as well as our Fall Tulip Program which has ensured that YES we can have our cake and eat it too...all year long!
To show how we do this, we need to take a little trip around the world.
 |
| More beautiful photos of the Tulips of Holland here. |
Typically, our tulip bulbs come from the veritable homestead of tulips, the Netherlands. Have you seen the striking photos of their countryside in springtime? Amazing. Our Dutch partners grow fields and fields of color and allow the flowers to bloom out completely. During this time, the leaves continue photosynthesizing energy from the sun, and all that energy returns to the bulb. Those bulbs are then dug up, inspected, and shipped to us.
We receive the dormant bulbs at the end of October, plant them in our rich soil, and store them in coolers where they begin to root. As their roots become established and small sprouts form, we move them into "winter" coolers. This cold environment arrests their development and they go into hibernation. When Spring comes, we are able to pull the crates into the greenhouse on a rotating schedule that ensures we will be picking fresh tulips every week.
 |
| Baby tulip sprouts || Tulips in the Greenhouse |
So what do you do if you want to grow tulips year-round? You flip the switch! This means we go to the opposite hemisphere for our Fall Tulip bulbs--New Zealand. There is quite a history between New Zealand and Holland, which began way back in the 1600s, but the exciting floral exchange occurred during the Dutch migration and contributions of the 1950's, which included Friesian cows and, of course, marvelous tulips.
 |
| Friesian cows and tulips |
Using bulbs from the Southern Hemisphere, we mirror our Fall Program to look like Spring. Six months prior to fall, our partners "down under" ship freshly-dormant bulbs by boat to foggy, coastal California. When they arrive, we plant them in soil, let them root, and then hibernate in "winter" coolers (and all of this is happening during OUR summer!). When Fall arrives in California, we place crates of rooted bulbs in the greenhouse, which then act as if it were springtime (and it is in their birthplace!). So even though these Southern Hemisphere Tulips are in our Northern Hemisphere Fall, they are bursting with vigor of spring, and ready to go.
Having the coolers full of rooted, hibernating tulips gives us amazing control. We are able to bring them into the greenhouse in a staggered rotation, which allows us to pick the colors and varieties that are in-demand per season. The best part, however, is that we can have tulips all-year, with no lapses in production.
 |
| Tulips in differing stages of growth |
We are now smack-dab in the middle of harvesting these soil-grown, Southern Hemisphere beauties, and this will continue through the holidays!
So take a trip around the World-of-Color with us, and share in the bounty of spring quality tulips right now.
Oct 23, 2012
Our Tulips Know No Season
Ad Rem Arcata Fall Tulips Humboldt County Il de France Leen van der Mark New Zealand southern hemisphere tulips Sun Valley Floral Farm.Like the heart, our Tulips know no season.
In Persia, to give a red tulip was to declare your love. The black center of the red tulip was said to represent the lover's heart, burned to a coal by love's passion. To give a yellow tulip was to declare your love hopelessly and utterly.
If I am madly in love and it’s spring, this is no problem since everyone knows springtime is traditionally tulip time. However, the heart knows no season and people fall in love year round. How then, to give your love a bouquet of stunning tulips as a symbol of your affection in mid-October?
Instead of heading to the chocolate isle or worse yet, the greeting card isle, talk to your flower specialist about Sun Valley's Fall Tulips. Fall tulips? Wait, I thought tulips only bloomed in spring, with rows and rows of dramatic color and the occasional windmill sticking up on the horizon.
Au contraire, mes amants tulipes.
Enter Sun Valley’s Fall Tulip Program. We plan ahead to offer classic tulip varieties year round, especially in the fall and holiday times, when tulips are as rare as true love itself. How do we work this magic? What kind of voodoo are we practicing to bring a huge variety of high quality, colorful tulips to market? No magic, no voodoo. Just a bunch of innovative tulip lovers who know how to trick nature, ever so slightly.
Historically, the Dutch found a great climate for tulips in New Zealand, this was to grow them for markets in Australia and other regions of the southern hemisphere with a traditional spring harvest. Since the seasons are reversed down under, this is where the opportunity grew to offer tulips in the fall for the northern hemisphere. New Zealand is known primarily for their sheep, dairy production and of course, as the backdrop to the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. New Zealand also produces a fair amount of tulips, and luckily at Sun Valley we are very close with some of these Kiwis.
Sun Valley purchases bulbs for our fall tulips in New Zealand and they ship by boat to Oakland, where they get loaded on a truck and brought north to Humboldt County. We have worked with our partners in New Zealand to ensure the perfect fall color mix. When we first started producing southern hemisphere tulips, we found that we couldn't get the fall colors we needed, such as the warm oranges and rich reds. We took the initiative, and sent bulbs south to help our partners create the seasonal varieties and colors needed to satisfy our customers.
Having the coolers full of these tulips gives us amazing control. With great accuracy we can provide the colors and varieties our customers need. We also bring them out into the greenhouse in a staggered rotation that allows us to offer these tulips throughout the season, with no lapses in production.
In Arcata, our temperate climate allows tulips to grow just like it is spring time in New Zealand, minus the sheep. The amount of daylight is similar to spring and our greenhouses teeming with color are a cheerful contrast to autumn.
Just down the road from the farm, some industrious farmers have a corn maze and a pumpkin patch, all those oranges and browns of fall meeting among gourds and scarecrows. We on the other hand, are surrounded by the feeling of spring as much as we desire. Strolling through the greenhouses it is tough to know what season it really is. Offering such classic tulip varieties as Il de France, Ad Rem and Leen van der Mark Sun Valley is able to Create a World of Color even as the rest of the northern hemisphere's colors fade with in Autumn.
Eddie Vedder of the seminal rock band Pearl Jam wrote, "Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away."
Perhaps he should have given our fall tulips instead?
In Persia, to give a red tulip was to declare your love. The black center of the red tulip was said to represent the lover's heart, burned to a coal by love's passion. To give a yellow tulip was to declare your love hopelessly and utterly.
If I am madly in love and it’s spring, this is no problem since everyone knows springtime is traditionally tulip time. However, the heart knows no season and people fall in love year round. How then, to give your love a bouquet of stunning tulips as a symbol of your affection in mid-October?
 |
| Perfect for Fall, our "World's Favorite" variety. |
Au contraire, mes amants tulipes.
Enter Sun Valley’s Fall Tulip Program. We plan ahead to offer classic tulip varieties year round, especially in the fall and holiday times, when tulips are as rare as true love itself. How do we work this magic? What kind of voodoo are we practicing to bring a huge variety of high quality, colorful tulips to market? No magic, no voodoo. Just a bunch of innovative tulip lovers who know how to trick nature, ever so slightly.
Historically, the Dutch found a great climate for tulips in New Zealand, this was to grow them for markets in Australia and other regions of the southern hemisphere with a traditional spring harvest. Since the seasons are reversed down under, this is where the opportunity grew to offer tulips in the fall for the northern hemisphere. New Zealand is known primarily for their sheep, dairy production and of course, as the backdrop to the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. New Zealand also produces a fair amount of tulips, and luckily at Sun Valley we are very close with some of these Kiwis.
Sun Valley purchases bulbs for our fall tulips in New Zealand and they ship by boat to Oakland, where they get loaded on a truck and brought north to Humboldt County. We have worked with our partners in New Zealand to ensure the perfect fall color mix. When we first started producing southern hemisphere tulips, we found that we couldn't get the fall colors we needed, such as the warm oranges and rich reds. We took the initiative, and sent bulbs south to help our partners create the seasonal varieties and colors needed to satisfy our customers.
 |
| Bulbs waiting to be planted in soil, and our tulip grower Antoon Volwater inspects the development of a bulb. |
They arrive in springtime on huge pallets, then we check for the proper bulb development. Next we plant these in soil, staying true to Sun Valley’s mantra that “Soil Grown” tulips offer the best color, size, vase life and overall quality. Once the bulbs are in the soil, we place them in the “rooting cooler.” This environment simulates early spring with a temperature hovering in the mid 40’s F and we add a lot of moisture to the air to mimic nature. As the roots start to climb out of the bottom of the crate, we know they are getting established.
 |
| Roots growing out of the bottom of the soil crate, and the tiny beginnings of a tulip. |
As roots form and a greenish yellow sprout starts to poke up from the soil, we move them to a much colder environment, closer to 32 degrees F. This colder cooler arrests their development and creates a happy hibernation with bulbs full of kinetic energy, waiting to go.
Having the coolers full of these tulips gives us amazing control. With great accuracy we can provide the colors and varieties our customers need. We also bring them out into the greenhouse in a staggered rotation that allows us to offer these tulips throughout the season, with no lapses in production.
 |
| Southern Hemisphere Ad Rem tulips that have been in the green house only 1 day, and the beautiful result. |
Just down the road from the farm, some industrious farmers have a corn maze and a pumpkin patch, all those oranges and browns of fall meeting among gourds and scarecrows. We on the other hand, are surrounded by the feeling of spring as much as we desire. Strolling through the greenhouses it is tough to know what season it really is. Offering such classic tulip varieties as Il de France, Ad Rem and Leen van der Mark Sun Valley is able to Create a World of Color even as the rest of the northern hemisphere's colors fade with in Autumn.
Eddie Vedder of the seminal rock band Pearl Jam wrote, "Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away."
Perhaps he should have given our fall tulips instead?
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