“And tulips, children love to stretch. Their fingers down, to feel in each. Its beauty’s secret nearer.” ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet (1806-1861).

In the floral industry, cut tulips used to only be popular in the spring, but now they have become an important flower category throughout the year.

“Many of our customers love tulips; it’s their favorite flower,” Rita Peters, assistant vice president of floral operations at Hy-Vee in West Des Moines, IA, told The Produce News. “We use them year-round in wedding work.”

Don Swenson, vice president of operations at Bachman’s Inc. in Minneapolis, MN, shared in a phone interview that tulips are an important part of its floral program. “We rely heavily on them,” Swenson said. “I’d say 70 percent of our tulips go into what we call a consumer bunch, which is a ten-stem bunch that we sell as a retail item to all of our partner grocery operations and our retail floral shops. The remaining 30 percent we use as a flower in our design operations — sometimes alone in an arrangement or oftentimes mixed with other flowers.”

And on the wholesale side, Joe Barnes, manager of new business development at Kennicott Bros. Co. in Chicago, told The Produce News, “They are an especially strong part of our everyday business from December through May, but it’s helpful to know that wedding and event florists use tulips throughout the year, regardless of cost.”

Eugene Brunk, general manager at Koehler & Dramm Wholesale Florist in Minneapolis, MN, also believes the bulb flowers have grown in popularity over the years. “For the last 12-15 years tulips have been available on a year-round basis,” Brunk said. “This has made tulips very accessible and popular for summer weddings.”

Designers also appreciate the constant availability of tulips. “I try to squeeze tulips always into a floral program, as they are my favorite flower as well as of most consumers around the world,” Pieter M. Landman, owner at Blooming Vision BV in the Netherlands, told The Produce News.

“Luckily, farms are now growing year-round so the fall tulips grown from bulbs harvested in the southern hemisphere have the same quality as the tulips in the spring,” said Landman. “I use tulips as consumer bunches, dropped in a very tall vase, in potted programs, as well as the long-life tulips, which are tulip bulbs grown in a glass vase on just water and without any soil — so cool to see them grow in the glass vase.”

Cindy Overland, floral manager at Hy-Vee in Albert Lea, MN, said tulips are used as a promotional item in the store January through Easter, when people are tired of winter and need to see a sign of spring. “We use them in wedding work and we also use them in a lot of funeral work [all year],” Overland said.

So, whether it’s a holiday, a wedding, a funeral, a pick-me-up, an everyday occasion or a special event, tulip season truly knows no end.