Arrival of tulips cheering up residents in Kamloops, Okanagan
Tulips are brightening up the scenery across the Interior. They are a colourful sign of spring and flowers that are loved and celebrated by many.
A flower grower in Chase is operating for her second season and is selling bouquets of tulips in mason jars or wrapped in pretty paper. Leigh Nelsen grows many kinds of summer flowers but the tulips are special to her.
“They are a sign of spring and they’re here for a good time, not a long time,” she said. “They start in the morning all tight and throughout the day they open up. The colours and textures of them are just so beautiful.”
Nelsen said with the recent sudden increase in temperatures, the tulips are coming up all at once and she's scrambling to manage them at her small Birch St Flower Farm.
“Typically different varieties of tulips pop over the spring months but this year has been crazy,” she said. “I have hundreds of them shoved into my workshop fridge downstairs with bulbs on them to save for Mothers Day, the biggest flower sale of the year, they are blooming faster than I can pull them.”
Kelowna resident and hobby photography Wendy Eiler looks forward to finding and photographing tulips every spring.
“All of a sudden after the grey days of winter, the tulips give so much cheerful colour, it cheers me up,” she said. “They are drama queens and showy. They look all dressed up in their water drops that look like diamonds.”
Tulips are celebrated every spring at the iconic Chilliwack Tulip Festival, the province’s original and biggest tulip festival that runs between three and five weeks. They opened for the season on April 19 this year and offer designated pathways through seven million tulips, according to their website.
A tulip festival in Armstrong, Bloom Flower Festivals, is opening for its second season this week.
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