Vibrant tulips draw festival goers - 31st January 2024

Exporting three billion tulip blooms annually, the Netherlands is the globe's top commercial producer. Launching the start of the season with a bold splash of colour is National Tulip Day, which takes place on the third Saturday in January.

This year in Amsterdam, celebrity Dutch DJ Robbert van de Corput, better known by his stage name Hardwell, declared the festival open and the musician was ecstatic, knowing that a novel tulip variety - 'Tulipa Hardwell' - had been named after him.

Robbert van de Corput (stage name, Hardwell): "I like tulips, I like flowers in general. I think it's amazing and well, as I mentioned, like, a tulip is such a special flower and I'm really honoured to have, well, one named after me now."

Representing different tulip growers, approximately 200,000 breathtaking blooms draw large crowds to the bespoke picking garden, where visitors like student Claire Hanssen can pluck up to 20 tulips free of charge.

Claire Hanssen, Student: "I think they're very beautiful and considering how cold and grey it's been, I think it's very nice to bring colour into the house."

Despite being an iconic symbol of the Netherlands, tulips derive from the distant mountain ranges of Central Asia, their name traceable to the Persian word for 'turban'.

Having reached the Netherlands in the sixteenth century, their popularity rocketed in ensuing decades to transform into a significant business asset. Bulbs were greatly prized, a commodity valued more highly than gold. In their heyday, a lone bulb specimen of a particular variety could fetch more than an average worker's annual salary.

While the tulip market famously and inexplicably bombed in 1637, the allure of this vibrant flower forever fascinates. Rotchel, who comes from the Philippines, is revelling in the garden's vibrant colour palette.

Rotchel Mae Padulaga: "Well, it's like a beautiful flowers and it's not, it's very rare to see because we doesn't have that in the Philippines so, that's really really makes us happy to see the tulips and experience that by ourselves here."