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Tulip Time: Iowa's Touch of Dutch
| Article
# : |
12022 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1994 |
2,349 Words |
| Author
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Muriel Byers Kooi
Free-lance author and retired schoolteacher Muriel Byers Kooi
is an active member of the Pella Historical Society who
frequently writes about the town's Dutch heritage. |
When visualizing the Netherlands, images of windmills, wooden shoes, and tulips come to mind. Indeed, in the Netherlands this spring the phenomenon known as "tulipomania" will bloom again as the anniversary of four centuries of tulip cultivation is celebrated. Numerous activities, including special art exhibits, flower shows, and museum displays, will take place throughout the country. Bulb-growing districts are planning to celebrate four hundred years of the tulip using the slogan "A Source of Inspiration." Botanical gardens have arranged spectacular tributes, among them, a lavish Turkish garden presented to thank the country that first bestowed tulips on the Dutch.
Thousands of miles away, in the town of Pella, Iowa, tulips will be honored in an annual festival. Fifty special varieties grown from imported bulbs will be admired and celebrated by the thousands who come to view the blooms. Sponsored by the Pella Historical Society, this year's Tulip Time Festival will mark the town's fifty-ninth celebration of these glorious flowers and their arrival in Pella. But for residents, the festival has a deeper meaning. According to John Vermeer, president of the Pella Historical Society, "Our Tulip Time and Pella's very special atmosphere are the result of a community conscious of preserving its past. We take extreme pride in sharing our accomplishments with the visitors who come here each year."
Pella residents are unabashedly enamored of tulips and work year-round to provide the new bulbs required each year for public plantings. After the festival, tulip bulbs are carefully dug up and semiretired in the privacy of local gardens. In the fall, the bulbs are tucked into cradles of well-prepared soil, then planted en masse. The buds that lie
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