The public is invited to pick their own bouquet of free tulips to take home on Flower Bulb Day 2020.
I’d never heard of Flower Bulb Day, to be held on March 7 in 2020, before and find it awfully early in the season for a world celebration of flower bulbs: I mean, even Keukenkhof Gardens, located in the Netherlands, the world’s foremost bulb garden, isn’t open yet (it runs from March 21 to May 10 in 2020). But still, there’ll be a big event in San Francisco on March 7, with free tulips galore, so if you can be there, don’t miss it!
Here’s part of the press release:
Flower Bulb Day to Blanket San Francisco’s Union Square With 100K Colorful Tulips on Saturday,
March 7
WHAT: “Save the Date” for Flower Bulb Day 2020, a stunning celebration during which 100,000 colorful varieties of American-produced tulips grown from European bulbs will take over San Francisco’s iconic Union Square on Saturday, March 7, 2020. Presented by Royal Anthos, with additional backing and support from the European Union, the free “tulip garden” will be open for the public’s enjoyment, with visitors encouraged to pick their own bunch of tulips for free to welcome the spring season. Access to the flower bulb garden on Union Square is free and so are the tulips!
WHY: Flower Bulb Day celebrates and showcases the beauty and availability of classic, cheerful European flower bulbs. European traders export flower bulbs to more than 100 countries worldwide, and the US is by far the largest export market for European-grown flower bulbs. European traders alone export approximately 100 different species of flower bulbs annually, including significant amounts of lilies, hyacinths, daffodils, dahlias and gladioli. More than one billion flower bulbs are exported from Europe to the US every year, where they are planted in private and public gardens, as well as greenhouses by professional growers for the production of cut flowers.
WHERE: San Francisco’s Union Square (conveniently located near the Powell Street BART station). A very large turnout is anticipated due to the popularity of prior years’ events, and attendees are strongly encouraged to use public transportation to and from the event.
WHEN: Saturday, March 7, 2020, from 1:00 p.m.—4:30 p.m., by which time all 100K tulip bulbs will have been picked and many US households will be filled with the wonderful feeling of early spring.
More information is available at www.Flowerbulbday.com.
So, will you be going? I won’t be sending in my RSVP: San Francisco, about a 46-hour drive from where I live, is a bit too far for me. But you can bet I’d be there if I lived nearby!
All photos courtesy of iBulb
Cut flower crops used to be important commodities in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Monterey Bay Area. Cut flowers were grown close to San Francisco Bay, where the soil was too shallow for orchards. I can barely remember the gladiolus fields on the coast of Alameda County. Some of the cut flower crops that Diego Rivera painted were in San Mateo County. Abandoned fields of daffodil, paperwhite narcissus an heather grew wild in Montara as late as the 1980s. Wow, I am getting carried away.
Interesting!