Special to Road Trips for Gardeners
From Netherlands Tourism

Holland is known for its flowers and every year millions travel to the Dutch tulip fields. Visitors, however, often do not realize that they unknowingly cause damage to the fields as soon as they enter them, unconsciously causing damage to the bulbs.

Trampled bulbs and damage to the growers each year runs into the thousands of euros.

This is why two organizations have collaborated to produce the Flores Touristia, a high-quality tulip that stronger and more resistant to its natural enemy: humans. The National Institute for Floricultural Science has worked with Netherlands Tourism on a tulip resistant to human influences.

Research and development lasting more than two years saw the testing of the specific ‘human deterrent’ properties of rubber and mangrove trees along with flowers that stink and carnivorous plants.

The unveiling of the Flores Touristia follows Netherlands Tourism’s successful #tulipfriendlyselfie campaign in 2019. The Flores Touristia will bloom all over the Netherlands from 1 April 2023.

(Photo courtesy of Holland.com)