Experience the bulb and the beautiful

The Tesselaar Tulip Farm at Silvan will be awash with colour this spring –- almost a million tulips have been planted in preparation for this year’s Tulip Festival.

The 64th annual Tesselaar Tulip Festival will take place from September 14-October 10. As well as the chance to witness the beauty of freshly blooming tulips, the festival will offer children’s activities, live entertainment, local food, beer, wine and market stalls.

There will be a number of themed events including Turkish weekend (September 15-17), Dutch weekend (September 22-24), children’s get active weekend (September 25-28) and food, wine and jazz weekend (September 29-October 1.)

The Over the Rainbow week (September 18-21) will include twice daily performances of a production of The Wizard of Oz.

There will also be tractor rides and an exhibition of sculptures by local artists.

Farm manager Laurie Hampton, who has worked at the farm since 1996, said more than 900,000 tulips had been planted ahead of this year’s festival.

He urged people and families to experience what he anticipates to be another spectacular bloom this year.

“It’s a beautiful walk through the tulips, a chance to admire the colour and enjoy some great food,” he said.

“It’s all about the tulip at the end of the day, so enjoy the bloom.”

Laurie said spring was his favourite time of year as he finally got to see the fruits of his labours.

These include assessing tulips at the end of each season to determine how they are performing and which ones are fittest for storage, and replanting and controlling rogue pest populations.

“For the last few years we’ve had a problem with bulb mite and we’re trying to steer away from chemicals,” he said.

“So I tried introducing some predatory mice and that seems to be working. It’s always a good thing when there are no chemicals involved.”