“I love tulips better than any other spring flower; they are the embodiment of alert cheerfulness and tidy grace . . .” ~ Elizabeth von Arnim, British novelist (1866-1941).

As a fourth generation tulip-grower, Leendert (Lane) DeVries has literally been in the floral business his whole life. His father, his grandfather and his great-grandfather before him all pursued the same flower-growing occupation with passionate devotion.

Born in the Netherlands (the land of tulips), DeVries received his degree in horticulture in Holland and then immigrated to the United States in 1983 and began his career in the floral industry by securing a job at Sun Valley Bulb Farm in Arcata, CA, according to the company’s website.

The temperate California coastal climate and fertile soil proved to be an excellent place to grow his specialty, bulb flowers and seasonal field crops. DeVries built Sun Valley’s first Dutch glass greenhouse for producing tulips and lilies year-round in 1984 and became the greenhouse manager, then he was promoted to general manager in 1988. Three years later, in 1991, DeVries joined two other Dutch partners and purchased the business; changing the name to Sun Valley Floral Farms, they focused on producing the best quality cut bulb flowers.

Today, DeVries is a very hands-on president and chief executive officer at the company (now Sun Valley Group), which has expanded growing operations in Oxnard, CA, and Ontario, Canada.

Although many U.S. tulip producers grow hydroponically, DeVries’ mantra is that soil-grown tulips offer the best color, size, vase life and overall quality. “Tulips grown in soil on the average are beefier, have bigger heads and greener foliage,” DeVries told The Produce News.

The soil used is DeVries’ custom blend of compost, sand, shredded Douglas fir and redwood bark and nutrients.

“Tulips grown in water are an unnatural process. In natural conditions, a tulip bulb is planted outside in soil, and goes through the winter in soil, and takes up its nutrition while the bulbs are in complete dormancy — in a normal cycle that’s how tulips grow,” said DeVries.

“The minute you break that cycle by growing in water, you don’t have that same benefit anymore and what happens is the bulbs, when they are held dry, at some point they just get tired,” he continued. “By the time you put them in water for two weeks and into the greenhouse, they just want to get it over with.”

“They grow rather quickly and they don’t have a good way to build up that chlorophyll in the foliage, so the end result is those water-grown tulips have a lighter color already at the mass-market level,” he said. “Come April, you walk through a grocery store and you can pick out a soil-grown tulip from a water-grown tulip; you can pick them apart easily. And by the time you bring that [water-grown] bunch home and you put it in the vase, things are not going to get any better. In just days it loses its color, so your vase life is dramatically affected.”

DeVries enthusiastically discusses the quality of his natural, soil-grown tulips. “Our customers tell us what they like most is that they can work with our tulips,” he said. “Their shrink ratio is much lower because they last better through the distribution chain, so the consumer also has a better experience.”

Because of his heredity, DeVries seems to have been born with a genetic predisposition toward passionate flower growing.

The devotion and commitment to excellence that he brings to the American floral industry would no doubt make his Dutch ancestors very proud.