Holland’s FLOWER POWERHOUSE
Half an hour from the Dutch capital, this town trades 19 MILLION lovely blooms every day
The volunteer-guide in Aalsmeer’s delightful Horticultural Museum is describing his long, back-breaking life as a lilac grower. ‘I started at 15 and my father died when I was 19, so I had to take over, as the eldest son,’ he says. ‘That’s the way it goes.’
His shrug suggests he might have liked another life, but the lilacs and taking care of the family had to come first. And that’s how it has been for generations.
From early April to mid-May, the northern Netherlands is transformed into a vibrant, stripy tapestry as the tulips come into full bloom. My photographer husband, Robin, and I are heading for Aalsmeer. It’s just a short bus, train or taxi ride south of Schiphol airport, yet a very different world.
This pleasant little town, about half an hour from Amsterdam and known as ‘the flower capital of the Netherlands’, may lack the elegant historic architecture of nearby Haarlem, but its twin glories are blooms and water. Every three months the entire display in the Flower Art Museum changes, and every morning the largest flower auction and market in the world takes place in the vast complex called Bloemenveiling Aalsmeer.
You’re allowed to watch the spectacle from 7am, when small vehicles packed with flowers whizz to and fro delivering boxes of blooms from growers to buyers who will export them all over the world.
Every weekday about 19million flowers and 2million plants are sold, with a daily turnover of almost €6m.
Since lilac is both my favourite scent and colour, I take plenty of time to find out about the exquisite shrubs which have made Aalsmeer famous. Astonishingly, 95% of the world’s cut lilac stems come from the area. Recently one of the large family businesses fulfilled an order from a family in the Middle East for 30,000 stems of lilac in varying colours to decorate a wedding. Purple lilacs symbolise love, blue are happiness, magenta passion and white innocence – so the bride’s father was covering all bases.
We take a boat tour through a maze of small islands on the beautiful Westeinderplassen Lake, where the shrubs are densely planted. Lilacs are grown all over the world, but the rich, black soil of water-logged Holland is perfect and the growing techniques in Aalsmeer are unique.
It takes six years before you can cut the first branches of a bush. The cultivation is very hard – each shrub is dug up by hand, transported by boat to greenhouses where the flowers bloom, then (after about five weeks) transplanted back to the islands.
Our base is the friendly, familyrun Hotel de Jonge Heertjes in a pretty square in the centre of Aalsmeer. There are plenty of good restaurants nearby, notably the Restaurant On The Rock and the buzzy Brasserie de Haven. They are hugely popular with locals – always a good sign.
For tulips we travel to another area: the Beemster. This is a ‘polder’, or stretch of reclaimed land, given Unesco World Heritage status in 1999 and famous for tulip cultivation and cheese from the Friesian cows which thrive on the rich, moist grass.
Farmers will let you visit their fields as long as you are respectful, so at Nicolaashoeve Farm I am able to achieve my dream of standing among tulips, feet caked in black clay.
We buy delicious Beemster cheese at a popular shop owned by the Groot family. Cheese and tulips feed body and soul, we think, but here my husband is in his element and I realise he’s rather more interested in food than in flowers. The shop is crammed with rounds of cheese, their wax rings in different colours indicating flavours, including herbs, garlic and chilli. We stock up for home because the cheese travels well.
To sense the spirit of beautiful Holland you need to understand the constant war on water. The old name ‘the low country’ tells you that much of it is well below sea level – and the Dutch have worked tirelessly for hundreds of years to become experts at flood protection. The land, so calm on the surface, is throbbing with constant activity underneath to stop water reclaiming its territory.
To learn more we visit the Cruquius Pumping Station on the way from Aalsmeer to Haarlem. Robin is enthralled as the guide explains the workings of the vast Victorian steam pump (no longer in use, of course) that helped turn the vast Haarlemmermeer Lake into land for people. It’s humbling to reflect that without the country’s network of pumps there would be no flowers, no tourists, no livelihoods.
Once we are back home, I crave a reminder of our delightful break in Holland. I send my husband to the shops to buy me a huge bunch of Dutch tulips in my favourite colours. No romantic, he doesn’t know these pink and purple blooms symbolise perfect love.
I STAND AMONG THE TULIPS, MY FEET CAKED IN BLACK CLAY