I’m not much of a public person, and I rarely venture out of my garden, let alone to speak to other gardeners. The other day, I met some enthusiasts volunteering in a garden, and I found myself apologising for talking so much about gardening. The thing is, they loved it and wanted to know more. I don’t consider myself an expert, but I can’t stop talking about the industry as I know it.
How much can I actually know about the industry?
I don’t farm the bulbs,
I no longer buy the bulbs,
and
I no longer sell the bulbs.
But I have been doing this for a long time and have met some very interesting people along the way. I’m just a little frightened when I meet enthusiasts, because they lap up knowledge. They tend to ask serious, clever questions. They know a lot about many things, and I know my garden and the things I grow in it. They are looking to save themselves from gardening disasters. I work for a bulb company, so all my bulbs are free, and I always have next year to right any wrongs.
I am regularly asked the same questions for which I still haven’t deduced a stock answer. Here is my list of questions I am regularly asked but can’t answer.
How do you stop squirrels?
You can’t. They have evolved to dig up nuts for winter, so you can’t beat nature. I have noticed they are very active in September and October and maybe less so in November. I have no proof of this, but I tend to plant later and rarely have a problem with them. Crocus tend to deplete much quicker than I would wish, but not something I lose sleep over.
People often ask about deer, too. I’m sorry, but I don’t have experience with deer. Where do you think I live?
What do you recommend for snails?
Nothing. Just hope for a hard winter and a dry summer.
Why are your bulbs not organic?
Oh my! It’s so hard being a farmer as it is.
I’m all for organic products. It seems like a good idea. Better for the soil, so harvests grow better; better for the environment; and better for the consumer. But it doesn’t mean the bulbs will be of better quality.
Bulbs have to be grown in commercial fields. Most gardens have hot spots where plants really flourish without fertiliser and pesticides and go on for years. But you can’t do that with a commercial crop. They have to grow where you have a field.
Without modern farming practices, the yield will be much smaller, and that will affect the price.
For our company, the main issue is one you might not consider. Warehousing! They would need to be held in an exclusively organic warehouse to avoid contamination from other bulbs. It is impractical for a company to hold two different stocks at two sites; they would have to be either organic or not. Given the range of current organic bulbs, the yield, and the probative costs, this is not going to be the model for a large bulb supplier like us.
It is a shame, but it also sparks my interest. Gardening in the future will be different.
Imagine if the industry collapsed. (Yikes!) For example, during the war, fields were dedicated to growing food. It was recognised that the flower industry was important, but farmers had to hold back smaller stocks and keep just enough to keep the varieties alive. Food production will always take precedence over flowers, and we have to be conscious that we need to feed a lot more people than we used to. We will have to depend on small growers and organic producers.
Land is a valuable commodity, and flowers are not an essential crop. They are a huge part of the Dutch economy. But look what happened to the tulip fields of Lincolnshire and the daffodil growers of the UK. Land is too valuable, demand is too high, and the workforce is not there. They cost too much to pay and house. It’s not sustainable. Should we not encourage smaller growers to use what they can and work with many more perennial plants, native plants that don’t require such a drain on the environment? It’s a horrible thought, but it seems to be pointing in this direction. But it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. There will always be enthusiasts and people willing to grow. Look what happened to allotments in lockdown. We’ll make it work.
I hate daffodils.
Not really a question, but I was a little flabbergasted when this was said to me and I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t. It hurt me, but it helped me learn that some people are horrible inside. (Just joking)
Will tulips come back?
No. Not really. The magic of bulbs as a crop is that they don’t need to be raised from seed. In fact, that’s a very labourious thing to do. Instead, they create their own planting stock by division. This is the same reason they don’t really flower again in your garden. Many of these offshoots will be too small to produce a flower. You may get one or two larger bulbs that could be planted again.
Dutch farmers look for size 9 bulbs to replant to fatten them up for spring harvests. These bulbs can go on to produce size 12 bulbs given the right circumstances. It is very hard for a gardener to achieve these results.
If you are looking to grow tulips for more than one year, it is important to lift them and remove the smaller bulbs so they don’t get in the way of the bigger bulbs.
Are bulbs good for the environment?
Not really. But gardening cleverly and choosing the right bulbs is.
Buying tulips every year puts a heavy demand on the land and does nothing to support the soil. They’re not even particularly interesting to insects. Daffodils, crocuses, and snowdrops, however, are, and they’re perennial. Planted in your garden, they serve to feed pollinators. They will lose any residual pesticides and fertilisers and don’t require much attention thereafter. Buy wisely and buy for the future.
Why are bulbs grown in Holland and not the UK?
Ah, a long answer that goes back to 1900, when bulb farming started to take off in Wisbech, Bourne and South Lincolnshire. The bulb industry bloomed in the UK, with its heyday in the 1960s and 70s.
Just to intersect here. I think it’s funny how unscrupulous suppliers were in those days. You have it two ways. Firstly, the customer just wanted some stuff to stick in the ground. There wasn’t the internet, Gardeners’ World and so forth. Experts were a world apart. So most gardeners would buy what they knew. Red tulips – Apeldoorn, Red Riding Hood, Murillo sports mixed. And the supplier would be blase, and say, well, we haven’t got that, but this red one will be ok. It’s red, what more do you want? Also, the reason why Spanish bluebells are so prevalent in the UK. They were bluebells, and to hell with the classification.
Many Dutch families made a lot of money from Lincolnshire and supplied a lot of work to the local towns. My own family business has had generations of students who worked through the summer holidays and remember those days fondly. It was hard work but satisfying.
The main difference is that Holland had much sandier soil, easier to manage. The silty soil of the reclaimed land in Lincolnshire is much heavier and harder to drain. It’s rich and more nutrient-filled, but potentially risky! Secondly, the waterways of Holland were more abundant. If the fields needed water, they could tap into the canals. The ditches and dykes of Lincolnshire couldn’t compete.
It boiled down to bulb production per square foot. Eventually, the cost swallowed up the industry, and it is all but gone these days. Lincolnshire still grows the finest daffodils you’ll find, but there are no new growers to take on the old businesses, and it’s been monopolised by Taylors Bulbs. But as a small supplier, I couldn’t work with them, they were too stretched too thinly.
There are still hundreds of growers in the UK, producing a wide range of plants and bulbs. There are hydroponics, boutique growers and networks of flower farmers. The flower industry is far from over in the UK, and long may it thrive. It’s just not done on the same scale, but maybe that’s a good thing.
Stephen Teeuw 