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You know those seed and flower catalogs that you receive in early spring from your local plant nursery? Imagine walking through one of them, with every single flower coming to life and blooming around you. That’s basically the purpose of Keukenhof: a showroom for the Dutch bulb industry.
This Dutch tulip garden is a real-life catalogue in which hundreds of flower merchants are invited to display the beauty and variety of their crop.
If you want to know my opinion on buying tulips from Keukenhof and bringing them back to the United States, I address this question at the end of this article.
Walking through these gardens can be the experience of a lifetime for the botanically-inclined.
To make the most of this trip, here are a a few things you should know before you visit the Keukenhof tulip garden in the Netherlands.
4 practical things you should know when you visit Keukenhof tulip garden
+ Keukenhof Tulip Garden no longer accepts cash! This includes food courts, souvenir shops inside the garden and even the ice cream trucks or sandwich stalls. So make sure you bring a credit card or a debit card with you for any purchase.
+ Get there at opening time, unless your idea of fun is rubbing elbows with a thousand people on any given park alley.
The park opens at 8 in the morning, so getting there before 9 AM will allow you to stroll around in relative peace and quiet for a couple of hours. By noon, the gardens get pretty crowded, but the swarms disperse again around closing time which is at 7:30 PM. So if you can’t get there early enough in the day, another good window is between 3 PM and 6 PM.
+ If you’re coming straight from the airport (there’s a direct bus from Schiphol Airport), there are lockers where you can store your small luggage for free. The size of the free luggage lockers is 25 x 55 x 45 cm (that’s approximately 9.8 x 21.6 x 17.7 in inches). There is a separate place for storing larger luggage. Just ask for the luggage depot.
+ Buy tickets online, if you can. Or ask your concierge for tickets if you’re staying in a hotel. It’s cheaper and you will avoid the lines at the ticket desk.
You’ll notice that the theme of this post is “try to avoid the lines if you want this to be a memorable experience, in a good way.”
Bonus tip! Keukenhof is also suitable for kids. In addition to the colorful flower beds, the garden has a maze, a playground, a Miffy house and a petting zoo. You can also get a treasure hunt map with the purchase of a ticket for children.
3 bits of trivia to IMPRESS your friends at Keukenhof
+ Keukenhof means “kitchen garden” in Dutch. When Countess Jacoba van Beieren owned the land in the 15th century, she used it as a kitchen garden and hunting grounds. And if you’re a history buff, you might like to read a bit about her life. The word tumultuous barely begins to describe it.
Don’t imagine the garden has always looked like a tulip paradise. The park that you’ll visit was first opened in 1949 specifically to showcase the tulip specimens that were on offer from local growers.
+ The bulbs (7 million of them in 2021) are donated by growers, but not saved from one year to another. At the request of the donors, the bulbs are dug out at the end of the season and used to feed livestock. There’s a good amount of new hybrids each year on display, and you wouldn’t want to let those circulate, right?
+ A team of forty gardeners plants each bulb by hand in the autumn. This work takes about three months, and the landscapers take into consideration color, length, and flowering time, to give the illusion that the park is in full bloom at all times.
Bonus! If you’ve already been to Leiden Botanical Garden, you should also know that the founder of that garden, Carolus Clusius, was the one to introduce the bulb to the Netherlands via Leiden.
3 things you should DO when you visit Keukenhof tulip garden
+ Arm yourself with patience. It may sound like a mindset tip, but it’s in fact the most practical tip I can share, and not at all on a negative tone.
You will have to wait (often in a disorganized line) for everything: buying tickets, getting food, using the bathroom, taking a photo without a random stranger’s foot it in. There’s no point in getting frustrated, so practice your patience muscles.
But you should know that it is WORTH IT! Seeing seven million flowers in one place (within an hour of a major airport, no less) is a unique experience, and you’ll be happy you did it. If you’re tempted to get mad at the tourists, just remember you’re a tourist too, and you might even indulge in a selfie every now and then.
+ As tempting as it may be, don’t get into a bottleneck close to the entrance. (Been there, done that. Learn from my mistake, folks!) The old walled garden that you first step into is indeed breathtaking, but go beyond it to discover beautiful vistas opening up with majestic birch trees and rows upon rows of colorful tulip beds. Everyone is going to stop to take photos right from the get-go, but there are much better photo opportunities the farther you walk.
+ Don’t miss the six glass pavilions. If I dare say, I enjoyed the flower displays nested in these pavilions even more than I did the tulip beds. Before I visited, I didn’t even know that Keukenhof hosts the world’s biggest lily expo during the last ten days of the season. (I honestly had no idea there were 300 lily varieties grown in Europe.)
The displays at the Orange Nassau Pavilion change weekly, while in the Beatrix Pavilion you can admire hundreds of types of orchids, anthuriums, and bromeliads all throughout the growing season.
I’d advise you to keep your souvenir-buying impulses in check until you get to the pavilions. You’ll find artisans exhibiting handmade crafts in here – a much better choice than the trinkets at the souvenir shop.
Bonus tip! The pavilions cover massive ground, and they look pretty similar (glass, flowers, benches, swarms of people). In the interest of not turning yourself into a mouse in a maze, decide on a meeting spot with the rest of your party, just in case you get separated. Otherwise, you might end up not seeing your family all day. On the other hand, if that sounds like an appealing prospect, no judgement here.
3 things to bring with you at Keukenhof
+ A picnic. There are concession stands and cafeterias where you can buy your way out of a hangry meltdown, of course. You’re free to try Dutch “cuisine” (you’ll understand the point of the inverted commas once you’ve tasted said cuisine), and there might even be a food truck festival going on (higher chances if you visit on the weekend).
But the main reason why bringing snacks is a good idea is because no matter what your carbs of choice are, there will be a line. And I don’t know about your friends and family, but being hangry (a frightful combination of hungry and angry) doesn’t bring out the best in people. If you’re not inclined to carry food with you, at least bring a picnic blanket or a large shawl to sprawl on the lawns if the sun is out.
You can’t consume your own food and drinks on restaurant premises, but there are picnic tables around. On a nice day, you can even sit on the grass outside the restaurants. You’ll see a lot of people doing that, so there’s no judgement or awkwardness about it.
Again, see my first point about the gardens being cash-free. You can’t pay by cash at Keukenhof, so bring a credit card or a debit card to buy food.
+ Sunscreen & umbrella. Bring them. Yes, both of them! I think the Dutch tourism board should make that their slogan. But there’s always the refuge of the glasshouses if you get caught in the rain or have had enough of the sun (as if!).
+ Walking shoes and comfortable clothes. Granted, you’re not going to walk on every inch of those 32 hectares of land, but just taking the paths will put you above the recommended 10,000 daily steps. Unless you’re planning on taking engagement photos in the garden, you’ll be happy you wore comfy shoes.
Can I buy tulip bulbs at Keukenhof and bring them back to the United States?
As a general rule, U.S. Customs and Border Protection does not allow private citizens to import any agricultural products from outside the country. All travelers entering the United States must declare any plants and seeds they may be carrying, even if these are souvenirs meant for personal use. These items will get inspected and possibly confiscated.
And no matter how much reassurance you get from bulb sellers in the Netherlands, it’s really not up to them to tell you what’s allowed or not into the country. It’s usually a hit or miss when you go through Customs, so I don’t think buying bulbs in the Netherlands is a good idea if you have to travel back to the United States.
You can still have a beautiful spring garden dotted with tulips if you buy your Dutch bulbs from a wholesale importer (they deal with all the paperwork needed to import agricultural products) or a local American grower. I’ve compiled a list of sellers with good customer ratings. Just click on the image below.
Please keep in mind that some sellers only sell bulbs in the fall, when they’re ready to go straight into the ground. So if you see “not available” or “out of stock” in any of these stores, bookmark them (or thus guide) to check back later in the year.
One of my neighbors from Pennsylvania used to get her spring bulbs from Hosta King – a small shop that ships from New York (and specializes in perennials and bulbs, not just hostas).
Another business that has good reviews is Daylily Nursery out of Tennessee – this links goes to the main page of the store because they sometimes have coupon codes listed on this page.
And that’s another reason why I don’t think bringing tulip bulbs from Keukenhof to America is a good deal: the price. Keukenhof is, first and foremost, a tourist attraction. And everything that you buy there is marketed and priced accordingly. So there’s no point in paying gift store prices to spruce up your garden (and yes, at Keukenhof spring bulbs are sold in the gift shop).
When is the Keukenhof tulip garden open in 2024?
In 2024, the Dutch tulip gardens will be open daily (including weekends) from March 21st until May 12th from 8 AM to 7:30 PM.
Read more about tulips:
If you like tulips and spring bulbs, I think you’ll like this article I wrote on the charming black tulips (including a few cultivars that you can buy in the US.) Clicking on the image below will open the article in a new page.
If you want to read more about houseplants, hop on my once-a-month newsletter list. There’s no neverending email sequence here. Just a monthly email to keep in touch and chat about plants.
All photos in this post by Mickey Gast for Green with Purpose. Please link back if you’re using any of the photos.
For more botanical garden guides:
Visit Leiden Botanical Garden, the Netherlands
Visit Trompenburg Botanical Garden in Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Visit Cologne Botanical Garden, Germany
Visit Bonn Botanical Garden, Germany
Visit Phipps Botanical Garden in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
